I'm fairly new to the game so bear with me. I usually like to eliminate the enemie factions via battles and not being to reliant on trading is this possible and how would be the best approach to this?

Is it possible to start of with a few planets and expand via conquering other players planets? What faction should i chose? Sowers maybe?



Also how exactly works the attacking of opposing planets? It seems to do nothing in a few turns, does it take a long time or is it even impossible?

OK there's a few questions in there. Firstly there are 2 victory conditions you can win by regarding a military mind set. Expansion and Supremacy. Simply taking the Homeworld of each faction will win you the game, In larger games this might be a problem because it doesn't knock the faction out of the game and you'll end up fighting a war on many fronts if you cant make peace after each planet it taken.



For expansion you're very likely to have to resort to military means the larger the game is. I believe its 75% of all colonized space is yours is the win conditon, so its much easier and quite possible in a game with fewer travel restrictions and only one or two opponents to grab a quick and win before a war starts by out expanding. I know I've managed it a couple of times unintentionally in 1v1s. It still remains quite possible in larger games or with more opponents but it will take far longer to build up the required share of the galaxy to win. And the longer the game goes on the more likely you are to win by another VC if they aren't disabled. Remember that its a % of colonized space, colonizing a new planet increases you're share of the galaxy but also increases the total galaxy size. Taking an opponents system takes away part of their share and adds to yours without increasing the total number of systems taken into consideration.



Invading a system is still something of an inexact science, we know more guns, more MP, more invasion modules and more melee on the hero in charge of the fleet makes it faster. More defence on a system makes it slower. But exactly how it interacts were not sure, especially because we cant see all the numbers. Plus we know its actually possible to make a system invulnerable to invasions of a certain size or smaller. Building a defensive improvement mid way through an invasion can in fact reduce the invasion ring and push it back the other way. The population is recovering faster then the invading forces are able to deal damage. So taking a capital can be a big undertaking. As quite a few people have suggested within the forums building a secondary fleet stacked with invasion modules that trails behind the combat fleet then moves in once the system is secured is a very nice way to speed up the process without weight down you're front line by carrying the pods themselves. There's really also no way of telling how long an invasion will take besides watching the little ring around the bottom of the system. See how much it increases in one turn, then you can sort of gauge how long it will take from that.



As to faction its really up to you. The Hissho love to fight, in fact need to fight, they're only economy bonus comes from successfully invading an opposition planet. But that favours the 'rush' you seem to be trying to avoid. The Cravers are also another great race for it, they definitely like to fight, they cant even make peace. Plus they have a research malice, made up for by the fact that they gain research from each ship they destroy in combat. Simply expand till there's no more room and then start taking your neighbours planets. Truthfully any race can win a military victory because they all have strong points. Even the Sophons who are decidedly bad at fighting can overcome the problem because they can use their superior research to get out top tier fleets faster then other races and win that way.



Hope that helps