How do you conquer the galaxie?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

What is your general strategy to conquer the galaxie.
What map size do you play on?
Have you ever conquered a huge spiral armed galaxied with 30 empire's, 5 fallen empires and 3 maurders?
If yes, How did you not die of boredom?

[Chap]

i play the ultimate resource train and there is no stopping it either, play genocidal empire, get fleet, declare war on empire and use the resources from their pops to build more alloy foundries and more ships, and use any leftover resources to make right any deficits (which you will have) using the internal market. i just snowball the game after that because more aliens means more alloy foundries means more ships means more conquering empires mean more aliens etc

[Катя Мяу <3]

Versus the AI, once you finished oone or two wars, you generally just snowball fro there.

[NixBoxDone]

Generally the quickest way is to get a planet killer weapon (any kind, though the pacifier usually comes with less galactic outrage and unintentional war decs) and just, like, get er done.
Keep track of truces and declare wars in turns, potentially multiple of them (taking out one smaller empire with troops + one fleet while your other(s) and the planet killer polish off someone larger).
If you actually wanna conquer the entire galaxy that way, having a way to get rid of bad planets and to utilize enemy pops quickly is probably key. So you're looking at bubbling them, cracking planets, plugging them into the matrix or stapling and farming/slaving em - anything more ambitious usually takes more admin than you wanna invest for however many planets you have.
I also usually reduce hyperlane connections and habitable planets if I wanna go all the way so there's less chasing the bouncing mini fleet and fewer planets to crack or package off.
That said, I don't "finish" very many games. I usually set myself challenges and end the session once I reach a strength and dominance that lets me confidently say that nothing could happen that would cause me to lose at that point. Anything else is just menial chores and clean-up, so unless you're really OCD about the game not being won until the last free pop submits to your rule or enters oblivion, there's really no point to force it.
Play until you're sure you won, then move on to the next challenge unless you're looking for a specific achievement you might crack in your particular session.

[Questionable]

Slow and steady, one constellation at a time or go all-in with a colossusm, either neutron sweep or planet cracker.
I generally don't bother with conquest on a large scale on any map bigger than medium size, it's just too much of a laggy slog.

[ColorsFade]

Originally posted by Questionable:

Slow and steady, one constellation at a time or go all-in with a colossusm, either neutron sweep or planet cracker.
I generally don't bother with conquest on a large scale on any map bigger than medium size, it's just too much of a laggy slog.

Agreed. Anything over 600 stars is too much.

[NixBoxDone]

I like the bigger galaxies for the bigger space for AIs to become powerful and the tougher endgame crisis, but for absolute conquest it's a huge drag, yeah. Only on smaller galaxies and with less planets. Ain't nobody got time to invade a thousand planets or more. >_<

[nilfiry]

I pretty much only play on medium, as it is the best size, I think--not too big or too small.

The dominant play style that I use in pretty much every 4X game is rapid expansion WITHOUT triggering conflicts, while going all in on research to maintain/pursue a technological superiority. Then, once my faction has enough resources to steadily go tall, I divert more resources to military supremacy, such that by late game, my faction alone can defeat the combined powers of the rest of the galaxy.

This style usually leaves me with little military might for the first half of the game, but I prevent wars from being declared on me by buying my neighbor's affection as soon as I meet them. In this game, this is made easier by the fact that once you raise enough trust, other factions will guarantee your independence or even ally with you, regardless of your military strength, so you do not have to worry too much even if you spawn next to a faction that cannot be negotiated with, like a devouring swarm. The key to this is the fact that early on, resources are extremely valuable, so just tributing a few minerals or alloys go a long way.

Basically, I let the other factions duke it out while I reap all the benefits and build a great army with a technological advantage. Also, because of the way claims and influence works in this game, I do not even bother with wars (unless it is a defensive war) until I unlock the Total War casus belli, usually through building a Colossus. This saves so much toil, as I do not have to juggle Influence costs, especially since Influence caps at 999, meaning you will burn though it pretty fast even if you have more than you need when you are just melting away other factions' territories.

When I do attack, I basically just use the Colossus to destroy every planet/habitat in my way because I cannot be bothered to manage them. It saves on some late game lag and toil--not to mention war fatigue from ground assaults. However, I do leave high class and capital planets alone, and integrate them instead.

Although, these days, I just sit in my borders until provoked--then I deliver swift and sweet, sweet vengeance/retribution--,while I wait for the 25x crisis to appear, as the crisis is the only thing that can remotely challenge me....if it actually worked properly.

I also only play on the highest difficulty (Grand Admiral in this case) because if I did this on any lower difficult, then the AI would be left in the dust--in technology and economy--even before mid game. And in the few games where I do go super aggressive expansion, it gets even easier because the AI is terrible at dealing with blitzkrieg tactics. Once you knock out one or two neighboring factions early on, you pretty much win the game because you just have so much room to expand with one less faction compared to everyone else.