What is the best game set up and race For complete newbie

[Imortalin]

Can someone please tell me what the best game set up is and what race is the best to play for a complete newbie? I am trying to get my head wrapped around this game and so far having somewhat of a difficult time. Thank you

[Dron]

Depends entirely what sort of game you are looking to play. Are you looking to make friends with everyone or want to go around conquring the galaxy and enslave all the aliens? You can add me to friends if you want to talk about how to play.

[Minoris]

Generally speaking, the more agressive you are, the harder it will be. Play a friendly, diplomatically-enclined but still armed to the teeth empire and you should be good. Think 1940-50 USA, in a sense.

Galaxy settings, go with whatever you want to usually play. Depending on your skills/past experience, you may or may not be owned anyways, the galaxy usually ain't an easy place for newcomers. ;)

[Dron]

Originally posted by Minoris:

Generally speaking, the more agressive you are, the harder it will be. Play a friendly, diplomatically-enclined but still armed to the teeth empire and you should be good. Think 1940-50 USA, in a sense.

Galaxy settings, go with whatever you want to usually play. Depending on your skills/past experience, you may or may not be owned anyways, the galaxy usually ain't an easy place for newcomers. ;)

Thats kind of random though. I had a game where I wanted to be friendly with everyone, but by midgame the galaxy was dominated by a bunch of xenophobic bullies against me and a few "nice guys" with small fleets. I played the next game as a very aggressive type and just stomped everyone in the way, was much easier.

[Minoris]

Originally posted by Dron:

Originally posted by Minoris:

Generally speaking, the more agressive you are, the harder it will be. Play a friendly, diplomatically-enclined but still armed to the teeth empire and you should be good. Think 1940-50 USA, in a sense.

Galaxy settings, go with whatever you want to usually play. Depending on your skills/past experience, you may or may not be owned anyways, the galaxy usually ain't an easy place for newcomers. ;)

Thats kind of random though. I had a game where I wanted to be friendly with everyone, but by midgame the galaxy was dominated by a bunch of xenophobic bullies against me and a few "nice guys" with small fleets. I played the next game as a very aggressive type and just stomped everyone in the way, was much easier.

Well yeah RNG mostly decides what happens. I sometimes reroll because the whole galaxy hates and want kill everyone and everything only to then stumble on a galaxy of Carebears living in perfect harmony...

It's kinda hard to generalize and try and pin-point a "best" or "easiest" playstyle in this game. :/

[Dron]

Originally posted by Minoris:

Originally posted by Dron:

Thats kind of random though. I had a game where I wanted to be friendly with everyone, but by midgame the galaxy was dominated by a bunch of xenophobic bullies against me and a few "nice guys" with small fleets. I played the next game as a very aggressive type and just stomped everyone in the way, was much easier.

Well yeah RNG mostly decides what happens. I sometimes reroll because the whole galaxy hates and want kill everyone and everything only to then stumble on a galaxy of Carebears living in perfect harmony...

It's kinda hard to generalize and try and pin-point a "best" or "easiest" playstyle in this game. :/

Thats a good thing, you have to adapt to whichever galaxy you end up getting. I think picking Commonwealth of Man is usually a safe choice, because with them I beat up even the most militarisitc opponents. If you pick something like United Nations of Earth, you sort of have hope that at least half the galaxy is friendly to you, because United Nations is not well suited for war.

[Druski]

While you're certainly going to want to decide early if you're agressive or friendly, you also could just focus on the things every empire needs: like science or minerals. I wouldn't bother with skills that affect factions or pop ethics just yet.

Every game I always start off by building another science ship, and (since I'm a unity junkie) a unity building on my homeworld. As soon as it's done I move a pop to it from the non-capitol energy building, but to help compensate, I also delete all the starter defender troops (saves 1 energy/month).

I haven't done the research on what is best, but I tend to lean away from the planetary techs for mining/energy buildings level 2,3,4 as well as the science buildings until I stop having mining/science stations to build out in space. Logic is simple: a lvl 2 planetary building gives +1 resource for like 90 minerals, but a mining/science base is usually 2 or more for 90 minerals (and an energy for maitenance).

Other thoughts:
Having a democratic government will give regular boosts to your influence every few years (after you complete the election quest) until you run out of mining/science bases to build.

being a charismatic race might hold off some early AI agression.

Having increased borders is a great way to get more resources (though be aware it will hurt relations once you start bumping into neighbors)

if you have a lot of surplus food, sometimes AI empires will pay extremely well for food per month.

I said earlier that I'm a unity junkie; I tend to always put the unity building on new planets (initially it more than counters the increased unity costs for planets)

your fleet command cap is a soft-cap. you can usually comfortably go over it in times of need. (it will cost energy). Also since it may not be readily apparent, your spaceports +their levels, and population add to the cap total

Pirates happen every game, so get a feel for when they spawn and have a half dozen corvettes ready for them.

in the current version (this will be changed in the next patch) you can split up your starter corvette fleet to scout everything around you for habitable worlds and points of interest for your science ships to go to - note that you may lose some in the process

[SALT_DON"T_GO_NOWHERE]

Having the fanatic materialist empire ethic and the intelligent species trait would be a good idea to have for you first playthrough, since they both increase your research speed. other than that, the rest is up to your decision.