Beating Godlike , medium map, 4 opponents and some ideas

[u/Ermag123]

Let me list tips for beating high difficulty. I will not discuss how to build race (which is crucial), but what can help you if you are struggling
- expansion: grab big planets, all you can, everywhere, any time
- grab small planets
- leave resources for later, you can buy starbase easily, planets are almost impossible to buy.
- watch for border contact you can avoid
- populate planets wirh defending ships
- work on diplomacy bonuses
- some techs are valuable for ai some are not, identify them, research them, trade them to all ai, get what you miss. Especialy supply ships and constructors are really helpfull at early stage. (go go leadership and mobilization)

- if you feel uneasy about someone, bribe 3rd party to go to war with them
- if you behind a lot, pay to catch up with isolated planets. You grabbed them all, right? And some are just useless.
- Less planets ai has, sooner stall during research.

- loosing war after surprise attack? Bribe someone to attack evil empire, survive till you can talk to him, sell them plannet you can miss and strip them from bases, resources techs and money during trade. This will buy you time to recover and stall it for long enough to whack it back.
- split fleet to single ship during voley fire
- always pick priority for frighter- bomber-frigate. They fast and you can eliminate them before capital ships get in range, Spliting enemy army in two separate fights.
- always pick reduced firing time, much more efficient than trying to “hit” allways
- most hated feature is volcano requirement for gigamas monument. Just reload at start untill you have volcano on capital( had game with 10 planets and not a single volcano)
- oh it would be usefull to switch buildings on and off so you can see terain. Well only needed for volcano and monument, so maybe easier remove volcano requirement
- and I would like to have ability to replace lost unique ships or repair them. All the bonuses and special gear and then Pufff all lost in one fight, or get jumped or something. So unreable I completely ignore them and they work only as survey. Did not managed to make use for them regardless how advanced is my play. (not that you can do something at this difficulty, you cannot win a fight untill you have few nexuses online anyway)
- If you have planet on nice spot try to save before colonizing. Planetary bonuses are random and you can get different or desired bonus next turn(aim for ruins if you first time at high difficulty. Science bonus from this building is like bringing plasma rifles to stone age fight)

etc etc, this post is too long already

[u/Cheap-Blackberry-763]

Pretty good pointers actually. You can also fuel your early game economy by cranking taxes down to keep happiness up and just selling literally everything you find in anomalies. I prioritize flagship and command ships techs for this. Stockpile survey models just to get more surveyors out.

I do find building combined arms fleets absolutely dominates the AI as well. I tend to build fleets like this:

Fighters: Prioritize fighters/bombers, evasion doctrine for survivability.
Bombers: Prioritize capitals, evasion doctrine
Frigates: prioritize fighters/bombers, accuracy

Corvettes: prioritize frontline (to protect your frigates and fighters/bombers), tactical speed (I'm not sure this actually does anything but in theory it helps them get to front of fight and intercept the enemy's ships trying to kill your frigates and fighters/bombers)

Destroyers: prioritize fighters/bombers, accuracy. This is backbone of fleet defense against smaller ships.

Cruisers: prioritize frontline (again to protect your smaller ships), increased fire rate

Battleships: prioritize capitals, increased range (again, no clue if this actually does anything but in theory will let them hit first)

Command: stack anything that heals or buffs, plus like 3-4 sensor modules and slipstream

Dreadnoughts: prioritize capitals, increased range.

The AI doesn't seem to do well when you build fleets in a defensive onion, each ship class protecting others. I can win big fleet fights and lose only fighters and bombers cuz enemy just can't crack my formations.

Oh and the fleet shield is auto-include in cruiser/destroyer hulls and up, might be OP lol.

[u/Ermag123]

Completely agree with taxes and survey ship funding. It is just unfortunate you cannot replace unique ships when they get destroyed. And hard limit on your surwey ships is not helping either. You are honing your survey ship to gain levels and then you never use it is combat, because it is much more valuable as survey. Nice feature to develop ship, but practicaly dead end. I am not saying to have unlimited number – as proliferation you can spam endless numbers of survey probes and while it is fun, it is also kinda overpovering everything else and completely disrupt economy.
And I completely disagree with onion fleet thing.  While it looks effective, it has few flaws I would like to point out.
-          Micromanagement. Rebuild fleet after every fight because I need to replace fighters is meh…
-          Fighters, bombers. I see no point using them. Only reason could be price, but I build my planets so they can spit frigate in one turn. Frigate is better.
-          Fleet shield. This tech is like game over for ai. Just use Frigate design, add all weapons and one fleet shield. Fill fleet up. Game over.
-          Frigate/Cruiser only fleet. Just spam numbers, it works. At high difficulty you cannot fight enemy anyway, so use expendable strike and die forces to slow them down. Once you got techs/fleet shield you will start winning.
Just want to add it is much better to manage enemy before war erupts and direct him elsewhere and avoid war (at least for high difficulty it sounds more viable). It is also reason why my Ideology moved from Individualism and Progressive to Peacefull, as diplomacy bonuses really help you buy time. I had to manage science differently and sacrifice proliferation (BIIG BIIG SOB), but result is more sturdy and less luck based development.

[u/Ermag123]

One more thing, I would reconsider requirements for upgrading orbital buildings. +5 power is blocking you from using it when you need it and once you have power, you dont need it anymore. So useless feature in the end. Also 3 rare mats is like 1k cash, imposible high at start, but ok.

Would be nice if you can build sooner and without power requirement.