I got lucky and started next to 2 primative worlds. Those are ripe for expansion. With that I got 4 planets, which gave me a great start. My first fleet was 8 probes, along with a single sphere. As long as I didn't have to fight a starbase, I was fine. I just grabbed colony worlds, until they surrendered their capital (that was my war goal). Then it was just a steamroll from there.

If I got that right declare war on the Krenim Imperium early on when you start noticing there expanding colonies. Pick off (assimilate) all worlds without starports (try to before they put up any starports outside there capitol) Maybe keep restarting until you see that there are a couple or so primitive worlds nearby... I may try that.

My PC struggles on the Milky Way map (not sure why,it is an Alienware), so I have to generate a smaller map. I'm just using a 450 star spherical map. I spawned next to the Bolarians and Orions. I don't know where theKrenim republic normally starts, so I'm not much help.

Right, I'm playing on the default 1400+ star system map. The Krenim Imperium starts very close and occupies almost the entire width of the delta quadrant (galaxy arm) where behind many other empires are. Then theres a lot of space south of the borg to another empire. Another Strategy I thought of was make a frontier outpost wall. But it seems they still can go past and the only way to prevent them was to declare war. The more I think about it I should focus almost exclusively on ships and army at the beginnning and assimilate any Krenim Imperium (and other empires) planets near borg space that don't have spaceports. Basically be in a constant state of war with them. Let them colonize planets (dont destroy there colony ships) then assimilate those planets soon after there colonized.

Will they continue to colonize when they're at war?

I think they will keep colonizing (unless theres something with the AI that prevents them during wars). Which either that makes them stop colonizing or you keep assimilating recently colonized worlds.

For me, I expanded in all adjacent colonies (triggered assimilators). With that I conquered the outer delta sector. When the inner empires started to connect to my borders I conquered them, all with just ships up to diamonds, but three unicomplexes complete.

The bummer came with the civil war when I lost two of the three unicomplexes to the rebels and they spawned with about five million (!) fleet points vs my 100k. :)

I just wrapped up a game last night as the Borg using domination victory, ending up in the 2400s (I could have won a bit earlier, but I waited to get an Omega Cube).

Build a small fleet of patrol frigates and a sphere or two. That alone will outnumber your rivals. You can use that small fleet to take some choice Krenim colonies, or go south to grab the Hirogen home system; I highly recommend assimilating the Hirogen early on and then working to transplant their population around, and transfer 1 Hirogen pop to each Unicomplex section. The Hirogen have damage bonuses that are higher than Borg or even Jem'Hadar, so having Hirogen pops early on to base your armies on is pretty critical in the long run.

It really doesn't matter if the Krenim and other races build colonies around you if you choose to turtle for a while to make your 3 Unicomplexes. You'll have such a large fleet and the obvious ability to take all those colonies that it just doesn't matter at all. There's no need to worry about making walls of outposts. Your only real concern is when the Borg Civil War is triggered. In my game, they started off with about 2 million military power, but after a month most of that disappeared and they were left with a total of 50k military power. 2 of my 3 Unicomplexes rebelled, along with a big chunk of my territory (I had most of the Delta Quadrant). All I did was immediately begin recapturing and reassimilating planets as fast as possible, and that's basically it.

By the time you can build Cubes, those things are worth about 50k military power by themselves. A Tactical Cube is about 60k. And your endgame megastructure, the Omega Cube, takes 15 years to build but it's worth 400k military power and it has 600k hull points. If you go beyond 2 or 2.2 million military power, you encounter a bug where your military power is so high the game stops counting it, and it suddenly counts as 0, and the AIs all think you are pathetic and the entire galaxy starts declaring war on you. If that happens (and when you end up being able to pump out Cubes constantly, it's very easy to overshoot your military power), just disband some units to stay a little under a total of 2 million fleet power, unless you want everyone to declare war on you.

So basically, from the way I played, just build a small fleet (it will be able to overwhelm your neighbors in any event), make a couple outposts nearby to expand your borders and grab neighboring resources, consider grabbing the Hirogen home system early on to gain optimal pops for building armies, grab some Krenim colonies early on, and then you can basically keep expanding, or you can relax a while, make Unicomplexes, and have a very solid foundation.

I haven't gotten to the civil war event yet (I started over yesterday). That seems pretty overpowering how did you defeat a fleet many times your size? (5 million to 100k?!) and take back 2 unicomplexes?! Right now I decided to restart until there was 3 primitive worlds close to me and go with the turtle strategy. (let other empires colonize around me until I have 3 unicomplexes, + the 3 primitve worlds)

Their fleets literally disappeared. When the civil war triggered, the Cooperative had roughly 2 million fleet power, scattered in fleets that were about 150k & 50k each (I had two fleets at that point, one of 150k power and the other 50k power, but I don't know if that's a coincidence, since I'm roughly estimating their fleet sizes I saw, and in some cases I couldn't see what they had). Almost immediately after, the Cooperative fleets simply vanished. Their total fleet power after that point was only 50k, map-wide, that I saw.

Is there a trick to unlocking cubes im in turn 2433 and still dont have accesss to them?

As I'm running along the Turtle Strategy of buidling 3 Unicomplexes (never declaring war until after). Has anyone found out if eventually you can build colony ships? I assume that it's impossible. Which Is why I think letting empires around you colonize all space nearby. "sowing seeds for the harvest". Will enable you to get more planets to assimilate and fill all space instead of leaving many pockets of empty space that can only be filled with frontier outposts (which cost influence) and is not optimal. So far no neighboring empires can match my fleet. Although there is a nearby coalition of 3. As long as I can pick there main fleets off individually It shouldn't be much of a problem. It really seems that for the most optimal growth, you have to let your neighbors grow a certain extent.

@Dius
I unlocked Cubes at year 2260. I suggest researching spaceports (got it shortly after level 5 spaceport). And other ship related technology.

Originally posted by bulabajones:

By the time you can build Cubes, those things are worth about 50k military power by themselves. A Tactical Cube is about 60k. And your endgame megastructure, the Omega Cube, takes 15 years to build but it's worth 400k military power and it has 600k hull points. If you go beyond 2 or 2.2 million military power, you encounter a bug where your military power is so high the game stops counting it, and it suddenly counts as 0, and the AIs all think you are pathetic and the entire galaxy starts declaring war on you. If that happens (and when you end up being able to pump out Cubes constantly, it's very easy to overshoot your military power), just disband some units to stay a little under a total of 2 million fleet power, unless you want everyone to declare war on you.

Whats a Omega Cube? Another name for a Tactical Fusion Cube?

Wow, the civil war is no joke! By 2210 I had 30 planets or so, and two fully developed unicomplexes. My fleet was a diamond, 6 spheres, and 12 drones, and crushed everybody I faced. Suddenly, I had to face 3 or 4 fleets twice my size. I guess I need a much more powerful fleet to face the civil war!