So, I did several write-ups detailing what I thought you should do, but scrapped them in favor of this:

Your most limiting factor is time, funny as it sounds. You are going to need to develop your home system, grab a second colony, destroy pirates and stall the Vodyani such that you are ready and free to expand on turn 21, because when the elections come on turn 20, you are going to go Ecologists. This will penalize your approval but allow you to expand into otherwise uncolonizeable systems without researching expensive tier 2-3 technologies, and if done right will set you up to boom once you switch back to militarists on turn 40.

To deal with approval: 1) activate the free law that gives +20 approval/-10% industry; 2) declare and maintain war on the minor faction or the Vodyani, without killing them; 3) consume slave populations in your home system (but don't eat them all) for the approval and food bonus; 4) separate slaves from Cravers in your home system by putting them on different planets. This will change after you switch parties, but by then you should hopefully be stable and growing.

The most important improvements to build in your home system are the Drone Networks, Virtual Reality, colonize tier 0 planet, and Public-Private Partnerships. Hopefully this takes less than 15 turns. Spend the rest of your time building a second colony ship and building military ships. The second system (taken from the minor faction, probably) should build Drone Networks and Virtual Reality, then focus on growth. 

I would avoid doing a Craver rush, personally; it ruins your economy and there's nothing juicy to nab as spoils. Plus, your only threatening neighbor is the Vodyani, who are uniquely easy to contain: kill their leechers so they can't build new arks quickly.

Unless necessary for fighting, your hero should function as a governor. The early game boosts to FIDS are very important if you want to grow fast enough to sustain rapid colonization later.

I would say that you should colonize systems #2 and #5, because those have the most non-gas planets. But definitely prioritize quality over quantity, given that you have a limited time frame in which to colonize; one large planet with a positive anomaly and lux/strategic resource is better than two unremarkable medium planets if you can't colonize them both in 20 turns.

The only technology called for in this strategy is the tier 1 science & exploration tech that grants tundra colonization and public-private partnerships. The rest you are free to choose, but I would recommend unlocking system development level 2 and the early combat ships quickly. The free movement technology - along with using probes to explore outwards - is how you plan on expanding afterwards; those are probably post-turn 20 goals. Before that, focus probes on exploring curiosities.

Hopefully this is clear and helpful.

Tl;dr: do everything you can to boost approval, use the first 20 turns to develop your home system and secure expansion options, switch to Ecologists in your first election (Autocracy FTW), then enter a rapid colonization phase while teching to free ship movement and putting down pirates and Vodyani.

TheTakenKing wrote:

So, I did several write-ups detailing what I thought you should do, but scrapped them in favor of this:

Your most limiting factor is time, funny as it sounds. You are going to need to develop your home system, grab a second colony, destroy pirates and stall the Vodyani such that you are ready and free to expand on turn 21, because when the elections come on turn 20, you are going to go Ecologists. This will penalize your approval but allow you to expand into otherwise uncolonizeable systems without researching expensive tier 2-3 technologies, and if done right will set you up to boom once you switch back to militarists on turn 40.

To deal with approval: 1) activate the free law that gives +20 approval/-10% industry; 2) declare and maintain war on the minor faction or the Vodyani, without killing them; 3) consume slave populations in your home system (but don't eat them all) for the approval and food bonus; 4) separate slaves from Cravers in your home system by putting them on different planets. This will change after you switch parties, but by then you should hopefully be stable and growing.

The most important improvements to build in your home system are the Drone Networks, Virtual Reality, colonize tier 0 planet, and Public-Private Partnerships. Hopefully this takes less than 15 turns. Spend the rest of your time building a second colony ship and building military ships. The second system (taken from the minor faction, probably) should build Drone Networks and Virtual Reality, then focus on growth. 

I would avoid doing a Craver rush, personally; it ruins your economy and there's nothing juicy to nab as spoils. Plus, your only threatening neighbor is the Vodyani, who are uniquely easy to contain: kill their leechers so they can't build new arks quickly.

Unless necessary for fighting, your hero should function as a governor. The early game boosts to FIDS are very important if you want to grow fast enough to sustain rapid colonization later.

I would say that you should colonize systems #2 and #5, because those have the most non-gas planets. But definitely prioritize quality over quantity, given that you have a limited time frame in which to colonize; one large planet with a positive anomaly and lux/strategic resource is better than two unremarkable medium planets if you can't colonize them both in 20 turns.

The only technology called for in this strategy is the tier 1 science & exploration tech that grants tundra colonization and public-private partnerships. The rest you are free to choose, but I would recommend unlocking system development level 2 and the early combat ships quickly. The free movement technology - along with using probes to explore outwards - is how you plan on expanding afterwards; those are probably post-turn 20 goals. Before that, focus probes on exploring curiosities.

Hopefully this is clear and helpful.

Tl;dr: do everything you can to boost approval, use the first 20 turns to develop your home system and secure expansion options, switch to Ecologists in your first election (Autocracy FTW), then enter a rapid colonization phase while teching to free ship movement and putting down pirates and Vodyani.

wow, this is a brilliant idea. but i guess the pre-requisition is that you need to save up enough money to bribe the Ecologist into the senate, and the uses all your systems on production that will help pop grow, which translate into production. however, what will happen when turn 40 comes and you lose the Ecologist in the senate? what will happen to those planets which you colonized without the tech? 

So (if I remember correctly) the beauty of an Autocracy is that you don't need to spend any resources to determine which political party gains primacy in the senate; you just choose. This strategy is only really viable if you are a dictatorship or autocracy for this reason; it might be too hard to pony up the dust or influence this early under a Federation or Republic, and even by boosting the chances of victory, you don't guarantee it. I've had to go through multiple election cycles to give Ecologists a place at the table using other government systems.

On turn 40, you could always just choose Ecologists again. However, that would probably entail too high an approval penalty to be feasible. I'd just go back to Militarists. What that means is that you'd no longer be able to colonize new telluric planets without the proper technology and any unfinished planetary colonization in colonized systems would no longer be able to progress until you developed the proper technology (BUT outposts that were growing before the transition from Ecologist to Militarist would still be able to grow into full colonies). The planets that you've already fully colonized will remain colonized and useable (they'd be relics of a bygone, pioneering era when Cravers weren't afraid to rough it on hostile planets.)

lol, ecologist Cravers, sounds legit. do you think doing this will waste too much time when fighting endless AI? 

fdjw88 wrote:

lol, ecologist Cravers, sounds legit. do you think doing this will waste too much time when fighting endless AI? 

I've never played on Endless difficulty, and so can't definitively say one way or another.

This strategy has worked for me before on Serious. It's less immediately aggressive than other ways to play Cravers, which is how I play generally. I don't think you have anything to gain from waiting for the Vodyani to develop - beating them quickly is most likely preferable - but doing so before turn 20 might take up too much time and resources, and being ready to expand quickly and efficiently between turns 20-40 is the goal for this strategy, so you'll have to balance those objectives based on how the game is going.

War.