One thing CS does in abdunance is give you choice. The following annotates the tech tree so you can visually link up what tech is where and roughly what tech you may want to research. Click each section to see an expanded info sheet.
A key factor is making the game easy. Govs don’t need to be too complex to make a significant difference. Likewise winning, is often down to deployment of fleet than who has the ‘best’ governor.
(link/example pending) As a beginner, having a “ensure farmers” rule and “convert civs to bankers if low on money” rule on a universal governor applied to all planets can save you heart ache.
A second level is predictive developing of tech. For example you can add a rule to build tech you don’t currently have. So while you are AFK and you have researched a tech, the governor will step in and build a Shield Generator for example.
Often a slowing effect of expansion is the supply lines of troops. A good tip is to set up an advanced trooper planet with a retreat-to rule. You could also use this so your production planets only crews the troopships, then with retreat rule they will go to another trooper planet to fully load up. This can also help against important production planets shedding their troop defence and reduce the cost of transports.
retreat individual ships to trooper if troops in troopship below 1
Often players forget to have enough troops. AM Frigates (10 Troops 52 speed) are good Troopships so it may be worth switching to these when not under threat. Mass low ranked troops are often best, troop combat is based primarily on number rather than quality.
Scans are very useful and are worth keeping a stockpile of. You can set up a simple gov rule so that if scans are short (below 3) you will build them. Scans are often very useful and time consuming to build so its often best to keep a stockpile. Else you can find your fleet stuck waiting a number of turns not knowing wether its facings a million hitpoint planet.
if currently no production> if planet scan below 3> build planet scan.
Cash is a universal concern when you have grown your fleet and having specialised cash-only planets can potentially leave your empire vulnerable to targeted strikes. Having a trooper-cashier planet will mean that your key cash production is hand-in-hand protected by the natural troop defence of a trooper planet.
Once your fleet and production has grown you need to maintain a steady supply of resources. Non-Golf's Auto Mine Gov is a good example of mining when resources drop below a certain level. NB you don’t want high surplus right at the start of the game. I’d suggest key mining planets with a 1-3 miners constantly trikling resources in until into good excess. That way you may be able to advoid getting mines earlier than you need to.
You would think you would want one wouldn’t you? Exotic planets aren’t much use early game and pritty much force you to dump troops or PD on the planet to stop attacks. You can do without one reasonable well but your economy will suffer evenually without 1 or 2 exotics planets.
The Following is for if you need ships ASAP: A side effect of advanced tech is the greater requirements of rarer minerals such as Exotics, without the necessary resources your production can grind to a hault. By experimenting you can design say 2 designs and set up gov rules so if the more expensive design can not be built the secondary cheaper design may be built instead. Important: Keep in mind speed, often the cheaper version is much easier to build so you may wind up with more cheap ships than pricey ones.
if curently no production > build pricey destroyer
if currently no production > build cheaper destroyer.
