Generally speaking, decide how you want to win when you start the game. If you're going for a tech win choose your racial abilities to support that and so on.

I always turn my homeworld into a manufacturing powerhouse to pump out colony ships/constructors then it will go over to military production. Start with factories and leave some room for a manufacturing capital/other special stuff later on.

Keep an eye on your economy, I always build a marketing centre/equivalent on each world to bolster income. If you go broke you're doomed. Don't be afraid to adjust your tax rate/spending sliders in the financial screen either, early game I ramp up the tax/spending sliders to kick research and production into overdrive and adjust them as things develop. Your spending goes up as your colonies complete structures so you will see your income dropping. That's when the market structures come into their own to offset this.

I tend to create a 'capital' planet for Manufacturing (homeworld), Research and finance. Each world will be given over to the relevant structures and I shove the matching capital structure on to make the most of them. Other worlds may be more multi-purpose.

No matter what your intended victory goal is maintain a decent sized defence fleet. Having a competitive military will greatly reduce the chance of you being attacked and lets you focus on your objective.

Trade is the greatest diplomatic weapon in your arsenal. If you have trade routes with another race they are unlikely to attack you as doing so threatens their own economy. If you're going for a non-military win then trade with everyone.

Choose your wars carefully. Attack the wrong guy and you might discover he has friends.....

Hope those basic pointers help. Good luck!

I'm not so sure about lowering your morale at the start of the game. It is the one easiest and cheapest time to get your entire population at 100% morale. Let's say you have two growth rates, 3% and .01%. You will end up with the same total population if you grow .01% for two weeks, then 3% for two weeks. or the other way around. (It's just multiplication and exponents, the order doesn't matter.) But the first way, you are charging a high rate of tax on a low population, then a low rate of tax on a high population. Seems like the opposite would maximize revenue.

Also, you would only have to build one entertainment center rather than five or six.

heh, yeah i turn spending up to 100% first turn and usually don't need to every turn it down after that.

scout space. the AI can't grab things it hasn't discovered yet either. this is why i like the technologists party. the +20 tech boost is significant (4 customization points) and you get a free sensor boost out of the deal. if there are two planets in a system, grab the better one (duh... but there's a good chance you can get the other to rebel later). grab all the resources you can, except the light blue influence resources... you don't need more than 1 unless you're planning an influence victory. grab them if they're easy, then just trade them or something.

i agree, push industry first. i usually press Ctrl+N until my homeworld has good industrial boost (once i got a 700 and two 300 % bonus tiles on New Iconia).

getting your planets to develop can be tricky. the other thing you can always do is pump a larger % of your spending into social production. that can help. some lower PQ planets will be much more useful later. the different planet types have different terraforming curves, jungle planets being the highest.

one thing to remmeber: it's relatively easy to change a planet's focus as long as you haven't put any premanent structures on it. i usually hold off building my capitals until i've grabbed my share of planets. then i decide which ones will work best for what capitals. i almost alway use my highest PQ planets for my capitals. my homeworld is often my manufacturing. any big planet with morale or food bonuses is a good candidate for your economic and political capitals (if you bother with influence). sometimes an ethical event will lend itself well, such as research or production bonuses. that stuff can be difficult to keep track of.

remember too, for a while your homeworld will be your best planet. that's why it's good to focus industry there. you might need to produce your entire early military there.

i think it's really about your style of gameplay in the end.

Ok a few specific questions I have about buildings:

How does the process work? Can you build multiple buildings on the first turn? What are the advantages/disadvantages to doing this? If you start to build 5 buildings on the first turn, do they build at the same time or in sequence?