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Is the main strategy in this game basically typical 4X early game mass expansion of spamming colonies or can smaller empires compete by other means?

In most 4X games like SpaceEmpires it really boils down to getting an early lead in colonies and you cannot be stopped, ala snowballing.

Early expansion certainly helps. But there's lots of strategic options within expansion: selecting planets for colonization based on resources, other alien races present, ruins with bonuses, etc. Exploration is actually a very important aspect of the game, probably much more prominent than other 4x games. So expansion is important, but expanding to the *right locations* is even more important.

You can expand too fast, of course. You need ships and bases to support and defend all of those colonies. So if you have lots of new, undeveloped colonies, then you probably cannot afford enough ships and troops to defend your empire. You have to balance it out.

Making diplomatic alliances is another way to offset any advantage an early-expansion empire might have. Other empires will tend to be a bit envious of larger ones, especially if the larger empire has a poor reputation, because of their under-handed actions.

You also can set up the starting conditions for the game to have some empires larger, and others smaller, if you want. Thus you can select different challenges, e.g. small, high-tech empire vs large, low-tech empire.

So empire overstretch is a real possibility (a la US or Roman empire). Is there also something like allegiance, which you have in Sins. It implies lower income from planets that are further away from the core of your empire, unless you invest heavily in culture that counteracts that.

To answer the question: Every single time. [:D]

Could you please be more specific?

Yes, you can certainly overstretch your bounds. Building an efficient infrastructure is a part of this game, and supporting that infrastructure is also a part. The more you have, the more dangers you open yourself up to - pirates, rivals, space monsters, etc. With a smaller empire, you might be able to hyperwarp a fleet to deal with that one pirate ship sniping your gas mine. With a large empire, you may be spread to thin and that one tiny pirate succeeds in destroying an expensive and important resource gather site. Further, you always have to make sure you can support, via taxes and income, the maintenance costs of your fleets.

So yeah... bigger is better is you can sustain it!

Is AI can exploit it?
Raiding your mining stations or using hit&run tactics?

ORIGINAL: Sarissofoi

Is AI can exploit it?
Raiding your mining stations or using hit&run tactics?

Yes, the AI will take out your mining stations and do hit and run tactics. I've lost more mining stations then I care to admit because of poor planning on my part. [:)] It takes time for a fleet to arrive to defend your station, when I don't manage my defense very well the AI will destroy the station and be long gone before the fleet arrives.