Decided to play a game with the latest version on Epic speed (not sure why I never tried that before; all playtesting has been done on Normal speed) and used the Antaran I scenario for that, playing as the Psilons on Standard level. After 200+ turns I haven´t noticed any significant differences. Got into a really early war with the Klackons (I had just founded my first colony, so that wasn´t producing much), who decided to try and capture my homeworld - and failed. Oddly, soon after the Bulrathi joined in, but I could ignore them as they were nowhere near (one of those AI flukes where they decide to make war on a civ that´s way out there...) I´m usually really late with Battleships, because Invasion Ship IIs are fairly easy to get early, and it was about this time that I was building my first. (I had found a couple of Destroyers while exploring, but lost both of them in the battle at my homeworld.) So when I had 2 extra Invasion Ship IIs, I sent them off towards Klackon territory, navigating carefully so as to avoid any Destroyers (since they don´t have defensive capabilities). I destroyed the first colony and captured the second. (In retrospect I might have preferred capturing the first, as the second turned out to have 0 production on its food planet, but I din´t have Marines on board, so that wasn´t an option; since I didn´t want to get behind colonizing I needed my Marines on my 3rd colony.) By the time they lost their second colony the Klackons had had enough and offered peace. Now my first colony was founded near Meklon, because it had 2 resources nearby I wanted. Unfortunately the Meklars had the same idea, so my Starbase ended up controlling neither resource (so I´d done better to wait with building it until the Meklars had done so, but oh, well...). Since the resources were 1 health and 1 happy one I was now in the predicament of needing to wipe the Meklars out (which I was planning to do when the Klackons decided to throw some ships at me). Well, sure enough the Bulrathi had agreed to restore peace, so I was free to go after the Meklars, using 4 Invasion Ship IIs this time. I took out most of their defenders (which included a Bomber), but failed to conquer their homeworld on the first try, as they just finished a Battleship there. So I took my invasion force out of range to repair and added a 5th for good measure; returning the odds were not good but the combined Invasion Ships had no trouble taking out the defending Battleship, so all good. 
I hadn´t lost a single ship so after dumping my Marines on Meklon I sent my force on to the next Meklar colony. The campaign went well, except for one thing: apparently they had founded 1 additional colony I hadn´t been able to locate. (By this time 2 more races had declared war on them.) While I had a Scout ship looking for that last elusive colony, I suddenly noticed that annoying Starbase had disappeared, because one of their other adversaries had taken their last colony.
As for long term developments, I had been steadily expanding and researching (getting Research Lab first, so I founded the first Value as well), so that by turn 100 I was well in the lead, and had no trouble to maintain this til past turn 200. Around turn 100 the first Alien ships were beginning to make trouble: Invasion Ships at first mostly, but pretty soon Destroer IIs were appearing. Now I mentioned earlier I´m usually late with Battleships. That´s in part, because you need a Capital Shipyard to build them, and especially in the early game that takes up a lot of production time I´d rather use for expanding. To compensate I usually go for Armor to up the measly Marine defense of my colonies. In this particular game however, I was also late with Battleoids, because I noticed the Humans going for Stock Exchange. I notice that more often than not, but most of the times there´s no way I can get there first; this time however my colonies were sufficiently built up to beat them to both that and the next advance, so I was able to found Religion. Which was good, because I still had only 1 health and 1 happyness resource.
Going back to the main game, around turn 200 an Elerian fleet appeared next to one of my colonies, and sure enough next turn they tried capturing the system. They failed, seriously crippling their fleet, but all my defenders were damaged by the Invasion Ships (level I only) and 1 Marine was killed, so I added 1 extra to the build list. This time I was researching Battleoids, meaning the Marine was replaced by a Battleoid and not ready for 4 more turns. The Elerians decided to attack one more time, losing another ship and then withdrew. It being an outlying colony I had dispensed with sending reinforcements, trusting the defenders would manage on their own. so I prepared an invasion fleet of my won to retaliate - which, frankly, I didn´t seriously want to do, because of the distance to their colonies and the increased Alien activity (by now Battleships were commonly appearing). Well, after a number of turns with no further Elerian threats they finally decided peace was better. Which was good, because the Klackons were much closer to my colonies (they also hadn´t stopped colonizing, obviously), and I wasn´t quite finished with them...
At which point I am now at turn 240 with my invasion force ready to invade the first colony. So that´s all for now.
I hadn´t lost a single ship so after dumping my Marines on Meklon I sent my force on to the next Meklar colony. The campaign went well, except for one thing: apparently they had founded 1 additional colony I hadn´t been able to locate. (By this time 2 more races had declared war on them.) While I had a Scout ship looking for that last elusive colony, I suddenly noticed that annoying Starbase had disappeared, because one of their other adversaries had taken their last colony.
As for long term developments, I had been steadily expanding and researching (getting Research Lab first, so I founded the first Value as well), so that by turn 100 I was well in the lead, and had no trouble to maintain this til past turn 200. Around turn 100 the first Alien ships were beginning to make trouble: Invasion Ships at first mostly, but pretty soon Destroer IIs were appearing. Now I mentioned earlier I´m usually late with Battleships. That´s in part, because you need a Capital Shipyard to build them, and especially in the early game that takes up a lot of production time I´d rather use for expanding. To compensate I usually go for Armor to up the measly Marine defense of my colonies. In this particular game however, I was also late with Battleoids, because I noticed the Humans going for Stock Exchange. I notice that more often than not, but most of the times there´s no way I can get there first; this time however my colonies were sufficiently built up to beat them to both that and the next advance, so I was able to found Religion. Which was good, because I still had only 1 health and 1 happyness resource.
Going back to the main game, around turn 200 an Elerian fleet appeared next to one of my colonies, and sure enough next turn they tried capturing the system. They failed, seriously crippling their fleet, but all my defenders were damaged by the Invasion Ships (level I only) and 1 Marine was killed, so I added 1 extra to the build list. This time I was researching Battleoids, meaning the Marine was replaced by a Battleoid and not ready for 4 more turns. The Elerians decided to attack one more time, losing another ship and then withdrew. It being an outlying colony I had dispensed with sending reinforcements, trusting the defenders would manage on their own. so I prepared an invasion fleet of my won to retaliate - which, frankly, I didn´t seriously want to do, because of the distance to their colonies and the increased Alien activity (by now Battleships were commonly appearing). Well, after a number of turns with no further Elerian threats they finally decided peace was better. Which was good, because the Klackons were much closer to my colonies (they also hadn´t stopped colonizing, obviously), and I wasn´t quite finished with them...
At which point I am now at turn 240 with my invasion force ready to invade the first colony. So that´s all for now.
