[MoO] ICEMOD: mod design, race design, strategies

[neilkaz]

Thx Rocco,

I was waiting for v10 but have been playing lots with v9d trying to learn how to use Feudal.

Now with stronger races I will pick some super custom race and see how I can do.

Super races were still easy enough wins for me vs v9, but certainly more play involved than vs 1.31. I expect considerably more problems vs v10 races.

 

[neilkaz]

Rocco, it seems that finally MOO2 is clearly at Deity level (comparing to Civ5)!!

Are some of these AI races now too advantaged? Time will tell, but I surely don't expect to be winning with a slightly advantaged custom race.

You nerfed my ICEMOD strat of quickly taking powered armor (giving up Rhull and hoping to steal) to have great troops to negate any GC penalties and to captures ships etc etc. Once again, I have to take a big econ hit and forgo Robo-miners to get P.A.

You made battles pods an early factor again like I was used to playing 1.31.

20 positive picks with 8 negatives and some better pick balance has changed some super custom races.

OK I started my game and after much thought chose UniAquaBalanced. Uni/Aqua/Prod+1/RichHW/Artifacts for my +20 and negs are Rep/-25 def,-20 GC. (Ouch that I can't get a quick powered armor and render that -20 GC as nearly meaningless for an early invasion, so now I need many transports).

Other super races are possible. Note that my race can't have large HW now as it used to. UniAquaProd+2 can't have Rich HW, but can have large but is weaker. UniTol can only manage to add Rich HW which is an awesome HW but not a large one. DemoLith can just have Arti but not Res+1 instead and can't add LHW to Arti for a real super research giant HW.

My UniAquaBal race's HW can at the start produce 54 pp/T which ends up at 30 pp/T due to pollution. (Hire that green eyed lady that often shows up early as Repulsive). It can also send 6 workers to the labs and produce 30 rp/T and is a nice balanced power race.

UniTolRHW generates 38 pp/T from the starting HW or can generate 15 rp/T. Production is key in this game and this race can get quickly off it's home planet, but might lag a bit in tech.

Of course, there are possibilities like Uni/Aqua/Sub/RHW.

Players tend to use their favorite custom super races according to their styles of play and now will face major challenges from AI races often more powerful than their's.

... more tomorrow.. .. neilkaz ..

 

[Rocco.40]

Cool .. looking fwd to hear which races you will meet and what opposition they can offer.

Yeah the Powered Armor, i found that i was using it alot and as you say if you sacrifice the RH, then the -20 race pick was essentially a free pick. Now it is back with the good old Robo's.

Also, the A-M Rockets have taken their old spot now P.Armor left and they are no longer a pre warp tech. This change might be in favour of human player who decides an an overwhelming missile attack, but the stronger races should be able to compensate. Lets see how this turns out!

In the field of Electronics is now the Security Stations with its original +20 bonus. It will ALWAYS be installed on every players Star Bases and in that way compensates on the defensive side for the -20 GC race pick.

 

[neilkaz]

Re: the Powered Armor. Sacrificing RHulls sometimes meant that my ships were shot out of the skies even when using shoot and scoot missile tactics (retreat after launching 2nd salvo), but in general my ships survived and I could use the RHull space for more weapons. Now PA comes much later and is expensive again and you sacrifice Robo-Miners and take an econo hit. This seems to be about the way it should be.

Re: AI races now. http://moo2mod.com/races.html

There are some very scary OP looking races now possible. A couple of comments about other races.

1) Alkari are bird-like creatures. Should they be Aquatic? Well there certainly are water birds.

2) Elerian .. what is Aquatic about their story and heritage? Perhaps other positives can better fit and not weaken them?

3) Mrrshan are cat-like. Cats hate water. A change would better fit their story and heritage.

Maybe the above is totally needed to make these races a real threat.

Poor HW is only -1, I'd think it would be quite a hindrance. But Rich HW is +2 but some of that is lost to pollution early on (unless Tol), whereas with Poor HW not much is lost.

I HATE playing against stealthy ships but I think +2 is probably OK.

Telepathic is good now at +7 but only +5 spying.

Re: race picks. If you allow for +21 rather than +20 for human players two former and commonly used super custom races become possible again.

1) UniAquaProd+2RHW uses +21

2) DemoLithRes+1 uses +21. DemoLithArti is possible and while it has a better home planet, its colonies aren't as good for research.

Perhaps you intended to rule out those two super races? But people may want them for more varied fun vs these super AI's.

On the tech tree, Re: Planet construction. This comes later now and really isn't a factor as you've increased the cost to build a planet and terraforming costs are doubled. Many systems in ICEMOD have more real planets than in 1.31 so opportunities to create new planets are rare.

Re: Biomorphic fungi. Is that tech important enough to cost that much?

Re: Food Replicators. Don't they turn 2 pp into 1 food? Should that tech be so expensive?

All in all a super job was done with v10 and we now have a very playable MOO2 at the highest level.

You are a blitzer whereas I am not. I can and do attack early but winning the entire game very fast as a blitz is not my style nor skill set.

So can you win by a blitz as quickly in v10 and in v9 (noting that in 1.31 it was MUCH easier to do so than v9)?

thx for a great game .. neilkaz ..

 

[Rocco.40]

About your comments 1) 2) 3) - I am really fond of race stories too. For that reason ICE 9 races were "racestory+extra abilities" races, but I felt to achieve a bit more opposition I should let this go and go for a complete redesign in ICE 10. When we have built some experience with the new kids on the block and we can see which ones do really well and which ones still underperform, we can do some tweaking and take the stories into account at the same time.

- Planet Construction, I have to admit it was a bit a 'fallout', one of the last techs that i placed but given that new map generation give more planets, i think its relevance has decreased, although it is always really cool to create own planets in existing systems.

- Funghi. You are absolutely right they are of real low value actually. But the a.i. players don't know that and if they tech the funghi they happily start farming at +1 on radiated worlds and i dont want that. Later in the game, if an a.i. happens to get it, it hopefully has less impact.

- Replicators. Again you are right, I actually considered to take this tech out of the game completely coz it is rather useless tech. But on of my design philosophy is that all techs stay in the game. So I put it really late, similar to the funghi.

- In fact also the stasis field, thsi time for reason it is very powerful in human hands, I have put it late, coz a.i. has no clue how to use it properly.

Blitzer: one of my favourite plays! I have to admit, in ICE 10 I am in great trouble! I have tried two games, with the cheaper extended fuel tanks. First game I had a cornered start with humans to the north and elerians to the east. After having built a quick set of Cruisers I went to attack the humans .. and failed miserably, they already had quite a few techs! I had the humans with the Cash+0.5, a very strong version of the humans. Cruiser destroyed. Elerians thought it was a cool idea to take advantage and they came to block my two only systems .. I abandoned this game! (i almost never do saves/reload). The second game, I dont even want to write it here on this forum

 

[Rocco.40]

Concerning the racepicks; i wanted to go back to 20pt system. Originally the 21pt system was made to facilitate the Litho-Tol Sillicoids that suffered because Repulsive is only -4 in ICE and Litho is 12. As in ICE 10 they have no more Lithovore (and this is also a break with their story) this was no longer necessary, at the same time ruling out some superraces indeed. Again, Lets see what we need after some games, at the moment i think the race pick screen still makes possible a number of cool races. I am in the mean time really searching for a blitz race that works although in my current game I am "turtled up", slowly passing T200...

EDIT: have you tried a DictLith+Sub+50%Growth?

-R

 

[neilkaz]

Rocco,

You may continue to find early blitzing to be quite a challenge in ICE 10. The AI's are stronger and tech faster and will have better defenses earlier. The v9 addition of free RHull to starbases makes it considerably more difficult to pack enough early nuke missiles onto a cruiser. If you lose weapon space for tanks it is all the worse. So you need 2 cruisers or maybe 3! Then a cruiser may be destroyed in ICE 10 since that starbase has more than beginning game fire power due to a couple of techs researched. (Note that you aren't getting the tech for fighters early in the game.)

I played some Feudal races in v9c/d and lost too many CC (cruisers). I did better when I used BB instead but that means waiting longer to get the first one. I also found that I did better when I discarded Telepathic and chose more racial advantages instead. In one game I had a nice unhindered expansion aided by 334 cost colony ships to several+ systems along the right edge. I attacked en mass later with big fleets. Once I got to advanced gov't it was all over for the AI's as it often is when Feudal can survive to arrive with a fair econ and tech and make ships for 1/3 cost.

My next Feudal game found the Cats down a long wormhole and I quickly blitzed them, and then the Tri's next to them. This was quite strong, but I was in somewhat better shape after turtling in the previous game as my research was clearly more advanced.

Both my clusters of planets soon came under attack from other AI's but I was able to fight that off. This game would've been a win (somewhat slower than my turtle Feudal game) but I abandoned it to start with ICE 10.

 

[neilkaz]

My first game with ICE 10 is progressing well, but I've had more good fortune than bad.

My race is Uni/Aqua/Prod+1/RichHW/Artifacts for my +20 and negs are Rep/-25 def,-20 GC. This gives me a great HW that at the start can either produce 30 pp/t (after pol) or 30 rp/t.

I spawned slightly below the center of the extreme left edge of the galaxy so my expansion plan was to head into the lower left corner hopefully finding it empty of AI's so I could have at least a half a dozen systems quickly. But, no, the Humans are in that corner. I know that I can't tolerate that and I switch my plans to quicker chem. research.

My 3rd colony ship's planned destination was changed slightly to Tyr to box in the Humans and to tempt them into attacking. I scrapped plans for a 4th CS and went heavy into research and had Z-armor around T100 (prewarp). Earlier when I finished Atmos Ren. tech I could MIRV nukes so I made some FF's at Tyr confident that the humans would attack and sure enough they did and they'd either lose ships or run away and sometimes wasted unescorted transports. My BB was a Nuke 27. Z-armor, BP, RHull and 27 FU Nukes. Had this been 1.31 I'd have had 36 nukes. This ship along with a few FF's crushed the humans until they got Z-armor and then I was barely able to destroy their SB. While this was happening since I knew I'd win the Human War, I made another BB to take and hold a great monster system above me. The splinter colony saved me 500 pp for a CS!

Humans were gone on T160 and I'd just managed to win a couple of battles, almost losing my BB in spite of shoot twice and retreat and losing some FF's and needing those extra few missiles from the FF. Humans were IMP1 type. Commodore Grum helped my GC greatly.

In the meantime I'd met the Mecklars to the left center and the Klackons above me.

Mecks are IMP2. Wow is that a powerful race to start with. Uni & food+1 means 4.5 f/t so being Cyber they need only 1 farmer to start. This means 7 workers or 7 scientists. Hmm +1 research as well so they can tech 28 rp/t, but wait they need a worker or they starve so it really is 24 rpt, but with some pp/t banked every turn. Uni with prod+2 means 7.5 pp/t per worker. 7 workers then means 53 pp/T produced which becomes 49 pp/t since 4 is eaten. OMG they're tolerant so they lose none of that to pollution!! This might be the master race, slowed only in the AI hands by -50% pop growth.

Klackon are IMP1 which is another master race slowed only by their dull uncreative minds. Uni and food +2 means 6 food/farmer so they won't need a 3rd farmer for a long time. Res+1 means 4 x 6 =24 rp/t. Uni+Prod+2+RHW means 10.5 pp/t per worker and with 6 workers than can be 63 pp/t which I guess with that enormous HW (ants are Subt of course now) will result in 36 or 37 pp/t after pollution. Pop +50% ensures that this race grows to populate its big worlds quickly and once it gets some pollution control it might be the master race.

Facing two nearby super races with also crammed into the left 40% of the galaxy things look too hot to handle passively. Mecks were at war with the Ants and while they made peace many ships were enroute and wouldn't get back to to help defend their systems so I continued war plans.

Soon 3 BB's and a couple FF's went down a short worm hole and took the system next to Mecklon. Into Mecklon I went and took one planet but had to wait for an adequate number of transports to arrive to capture their HW. Meck systems below me also were captured and I await the assimilation of many captured super worker slaves.

It is T192 and the only thing keeping Mecklar alive is that I need U-cells to reach their 3 systems up near the Ants. I am now terraforming and also colonizing every possible rock in my lower left corner of this galaxy. Things look good for me, but I don't expect the cake walk win from here that I'd have in 1.31 or even ICE 9.

Other AI's met are Alkari 1, Gnolam 1, Silicoid 3, and I've not met the 7th race which must be beaten back to just a couple of systems.

I strongly urge others here to try ICE 10 as it is MUCH MUCH a better fight vs AI's than vanilla.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[neilkaz]

Rocco asks, "Have you tried a DictLith+Sub+50%Growth?." Nope as my style is more to go for great production races or great researching ones. I'll get my size from expansion and then terraforming and my growth from housing and clones. I expect that I need to use true super races to have a decent chance to win ICE 10 H/I/8 pw. So lets look at some possible super races. I'll look only at the 20 positives.

Uni/Aqua/Prod+1/RHW/Arti can generate 30/30 at the start (30 pp/t post pollution, or 30 rpt) and is a great balanced race with aquatic benefits.

Edit: I checked out a change to the above race with Uni/Food+1/Prod+1/LRHW/Arti and that came in at 31/30. So, LOL, The pop 18 HW I get from Aquatic pollutes one more than does the pop 18 HW I get from large!

Uni/Tol/RHW generates 38/15 and is great for getting off the HW but can't have a large HW anymore.

Uni/Aqua/Prod+2 only has room to add LHW now so is nerfed losing RHW. But we can change this somewhat now and get...

Uni/Food+1/Prod+2/LRHW. While this loses aquatic benefits, now farmers can do OK on dry planets and colonies can house and grow quickly. I gives 36/18 to start. Once pollution can be controlled, the starting planet will come close to producing its 63 pp/t with 6 workers and 2 farmers.

Cybernetic is possible and can create some great races since need for farming is halved, but 4 pp/t is eaten starting out and when researching, a worker (2 if no prod.+1 or not Uni) will need to be taken from the lab and put to work so overall research rate is slowed.

Lets look at some tech races.

DemoLith can only have Arti now and generates 15(loses 9 to pol)/60. Superb for early tech but needs quick production buildings and also suffers from pollution. I had no trouble winning a couple of games vs v9 with this race but also could have LHW, but still won faster with production races.

Can we do better or different? Well we can go Demo/Food+2/Res+2/Arti and have super geniuses in our labs each producing 10.5 rp/T! With 6 picks remaining we can now add food+2 and have a LHW as well to house even more scientists. Now we can have 6 scientists and 63 rp/T! 18 pp/t will waste down to 13pp/t. This could be a fun race and our colonists on other worlds will be quite useful.

We can add many production and planetary enhancements if we are a Dictatorship but we gain no governmental 50% modifiers.

I'll edit in some Dict attempts at super races later.

I think the best Dict balanced race that I can come up with where the home planet is concerned is Dict/Lith/Prod+1/LRHW/Arti. This clocks in at 28/40 and shows why Lithovore costs 12 picks.

 

[Rocco.40]

Once I got to advanced gov't it was all over for the AI's as it often is when Feudal can survive to arrive with a fair econ and tech and make ships for 1/3 cost.

Really interesting that you should mention this, coz at the moment I am working on the Feudal code! Currently the discount is 1/3 - 2/3 for ship cost and penalty -35% -10% for research at -5 race picks. I think the 2/3 discount on advanced is too much and should be max 50%. For the ship cost I am considering the following options:
#1 is 1/3 - 50%, still get the big discount but not as much in advanced (i havent figured out how to code this yet but is my preference)
#2 is 40% - 50% discount - which is such a real hefty start discount (i can code this discount)
#3 is 25% - 40% discount - a lower discount on basic and adv governments (can do this too)
Offcourse with any change, would need to see how to adjust racepick / research penalty as all three go hand in hand. Feudal can use some boost in base government and at the same time I want to get a lower advanced ship cost discount.

 

[Rocco.40]

You may continue to find early blitzing to be quite a challenge in ICE 10.

Yes! As I said, I am in great trouble and that is really cool, trying to find a new fastest way to win.

Humans were gone on T160 and I'd just managed to win a couple of battles, almost losing my BB in spite of shoot twice and retreat and losing some FF's and needing those extra few missiles from the FF. Humans were IMP1 type.

IMP1 Humans are a strong opponent, in my games I always see them develop nicely. Good that you took them down first! Did the Humans have the A-M Rockets? Coz in ICE 10 it is no longer a PW tech, but back in construction branch.

Other AI's met are Alkari 1,

You have the Demo Alkari's in the game! (Demo, Aqua, Pop+50, Res+2, SD+45) Let me hear how they do in this game, considering they have had some time to do their research.

 

[neilkaz]

Really interesting that you should mention this, coz at the moment I am working on the Feudal code! Currently the discount is 1/3 - 2/3 for ship cost and penalty -35% -10% for research at -5 race picks. I think the 2/3 discount on advanced is too much and should be max 50%. For the ship cost I am considering the following options:
#1 is 1/3 - 50%, still get the big discount but not as much in advanced (i havent figured out how to code this yet but is my preference)
#2 is 40% - 50% discount - which is such a real hefty start discount (i can code this discount)
#3 is 25% - 40% discount - a lower discount on basic and adv governments (can do this too)
Offcourse with any change, would need to see how to adjust racepick / research penalty as all three go hand in hand. Feudal can use some boost in base government and at the same time I want to get a lower advanced ship cost discount.

Yes, I think that 2/3 is too much for advanced as well. I was thinking 50% and perhaps then drop the research penalty from 10% to 0% (or perhaps keep it at 10%).

Feudal is currently -5 so unless I misunderstand something in ICE 10 one cannot be Feudal and Repulsive? Some players always want Repulsive vs AI's so they don't have to interface with them. I do think Repulsive is fairly balanced at -4 and wouldn't consider a change. Maybe Feudal at 1/3 then 1/2 for ships and -35% and then 0% for techs could be -4 rather than -5?

I'd also leave the initial tech penalty at -35% since if you make it less, you really change the flavor of Feudal.

Lets look at a very strong race for Dict (perhaps the best) from my post above.
"I think the best Dict balanced race that I can come up with where the home planet is concerned is Dict/Lith/Prod+1/LRHW/Arti. This clocks in at 28 (48 -20 lost to pol)/40 and shows why Lithovore costs 12 picks."

Now if we are Feudal and apply that 35% tech penalty we have either 28 pp/t or 26 rp/t at the game's start from our HW. I'd think that this would be a playable race.

Now when it comes time to make our ships this we'd have 1.5 times the effective production from our HW or 42 pp/t. Our colonies get +1 production and don't have to be fed via farms so they seem OK. It is easy to play Litho so I hope someone can give Feudal/Lith/Prod+1/LRHW/Arti a try. You only need 3 more negs and can interface with AI's which would allow good income from trades considering how quickly AI's will be strong in ICE 10.

Perhaps you or someone can try this, I have to finish my 1st game first and prove that someone can beat ICE 10!

 

[neilkaz]

Imp1 Humans weren't all that strong in my game, but I colonized to basically block them in the corner and limited them to three systems all conquered by T160pw. In comparison to Vanilla they were a much tougher conquest with clearly more and better ships and better tech (managing to get Z-armor during the war, etc).

I don't recall whether they had A-M rockets but they did have ECM Jammer and when I got Neutron Scanner my missiles hit more often.

Alkari are doing OK in my game but the leaders are the Ants and they also have more tech than I do in spite my lead in pop (conquests etc). Imp1 Klackon is super powerful!

Re: an earlier question about negs in v9. I preferred my -6 to come from LG rather than pop growth and as a test UniTol start was really hindered by -50 growth and housing seemed hindered as well. Perhaps this was just my style of start and play and I can see why others would hate LG.

 

[neilkaz]

To get more of a feel for ICE 10, I put the above game on hold for a bit and rolled a game with what I think is a very strong Feudal race. Feudal/Lith/Prod+1/LRHW/Arti. Needing only 3 negs I choose -ATT-Def and can now interface with the AI's to get a flavor of how nasty they'll act towards me.

I spawned in the lower left corner and had delusions about being left alone and isolated for at least 100T(pw) so REX to several nice systems with a potent economy. Quickly, I found the master race of Imp1 Klackons too close for comfort. They wanted nothing to do with me.

I thought the there was an equal chance of having each of three Imp options for races each game so maybe just bad luck to have to face these. Anyhow, it was clear to me to prepare for Ant Wars.

Greedy little trolls were met down a long wormhole and they disliked me immediately. Finally sometime after T100 I managed to get trades going with Darlok and Trilarians. Darloks are not what you want in the game when you have no agent bonus and I've lost several techs to various races.

In comparison to Vanilla, here the AI's develop and are stronger quicker and therefore regard you as a victim or weakling sooner and more easily. I suspected this and had a CC and FF (refit scout) ready at my vulnerable colony and fended off a Klackon DOW while waiting for a couple of BB's to counter attack.

T138 now and I've taken a few Klackon systems and they've taken a couple back as I move on to others. I lost a few ships to those nasty Ion Cannons and need a few turns to get more BB built. My LRHW is a powerhouse with 20 ship builders. I think I can win this Klackon war and then be in decent shape moving forward.

Shocking how fast most AI races tech now as I am well behind the thieving Darloks.

 

[Rocco.40]

Have just started game with same race, except have chosen spy -15 ..
First race I met was also the Klackon IMP1. What-do-you-say!
When I tested the new races (>40 testruns!) chances to get either Klackon race was ~1/3.
What stood out during testing is that if Sakkra were in the game, I got a lot of Sakkra IMP 1 (High-G) and with Humans IMP 3 (Food +2) was really rare.

In earlier game, I was surprised as well to see the Darlocks can do quite well, with their Food bonus and RHW.

 

[neilkaz]

I fear -15 spying when Feudal or worse yet Demo since you don't start with any agent bonuses. Heaven forbid you meet Darlok early and he isn't easily befriended so he'll accept being told to stop spying. Maybe getting a bunch of techs swiped isn't as bad as I think, but there may be annoying sabotage as well.

Yeah, Darlok does OK now, but as usual, they may piss off enough AI's to get into a couple of wars and get pounded.

How's your Feudal game going? .. neilkaz ..

 

[neilkaz]

OK in my Feudal game. T163 Klackon conquest finished and I have a bunch of super workers to spread around as they are much better than my race. We traded some planets back and forth but finally I got his fleet destroyed and finished him.

Then it was down a worm hole to take on the Gnolam. They had more ships than I, and sent a fleet of a dozen to defend and chase me from Gnol. I left and quickly returned and took their HW and had 3 other systems but they recovered one. I could not dare to fight a united fleet of 9 BB plus support ships until more BB arrived (some on the way and some being built).

T183 and the idiocy of AI surrender rears its ugly head! Gnols weren't near dead yet and still had fleet superiority but surrendered their ships and several remaining systems to the Cats who are now a super power. At least we are good friends for now.
During my wars I lost a couple BB's and also one leader. This was much less likely to happen in 1.31 this early since AI's didn't have much to defend with this soon.

PLEASE CONSIDER REMOVING SURRENDER FROM THE GAME if possible.

T192 and while I have a big lead in pop and an ample fleet I am well behind in tech! I am terraforming and colonizing nearly every rock as everyone left likes me but Mecklar so I feel safe and know that I have to get my research much higher to keep up. Autolabs are going to be built now.

Again I'll stress as a Civ5 Player (Immortal) 1.31 vanilla was maybe Prince to King level, ICE 9 was Emperor to Immortal, but ICE 10 with nearly every AI race a super race, many more powerful than any custom race a human player can have, is certainly Deity level. The AI's expand and tech so quickly and of course also build better ships quickly and attack.

I have to play slowly and micro everything and check the colony screen to make sure that I am maximizing my natural growth and building important buildings ASAP and in proper order in new colonies. Playing vanilla I could be considerably more lackadaisical.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[Rocco.40]

you are right, -15 is harsh, when i met the Klackon and the Gnolam they pretty quickly stole may r.labs and a.factory, leaving me with only comforting thought that these techs are singletons and they would have gotten them any way .. at some point. When I met the Human they repeated this joke and stole r.labs. But now I have been able to build up sufficient spy defenses + I regularly demand opponents to stop spying.

Around T100 I was getting upper hand in war with klackons, when humans broke all treaties and back stabbed me at other end of my imperium. Well done a.i.! This is at least one of a.i. moves that make sense. So now I am working two a.i. wars and the Klackon's power to rebuild stuff, ships & defense, once the Humans distracted me, is amazing.
tbc...

 

[Rocco.40]

a.i. surrender: although i know where the code for this behaviour is located, i have no knowledge of assembly to be able to interpret, let alone change this formula unfortunately.

 

[neilkaz]

you are right, -15 is harsh, when i met the Klackon and the Gnolam they pretty quickly stole may r.labs and a.factory, leaving me with only comforting thought that these techs are singletons and they would have gotten them any way .. at some point. When I met the Human they repeated this joke and stole r.labs. But now I have been able to build up sufficient spy defenses + I regularly demand opponents to stop spying.

Around T100 I was getting upper hand in war with klackons, when humans broke all treaties and back stabbed me at other end of my imperium. Well done a.i.! This is at least one of a.i. moves that make sense. So now I am working two a.i. wars and the Klackon's power to rebuild stuff, ships & defense, once the Humans distracted me, is amazing.
tbc...

You're survival in this game of course depends whether you can survive this 2 front war.
You T100 is from a standard start I assume?

Humans are major backstabbers in this game when given the opportunity. In my series of games playing all 13 standard races in vanilla I was stabbed by them many times.
Watch out for races with stealthy ships as well. Cats being naturally aggressive often stabbed me when they had stealthy ships. Darlok was less aggressive with their always stealthy ships but I had to be cautious about leaving an undefended front vs them.

If the AI's have enough firepower to destroy your SB some more defense is needed. This is where it gets difficult as you need either to research some planetary defense(s) which means spending PP to build them and often passing on something else you'd prefer to research. Ships can be left behind, but they may be needed on the front lines rather than just sitting back doing nothing. Small ships with EMG can be quickly built if you feel the need.

I hated to pass on Pleasure Domes, but felt the need for EMG. I presume I can kill the Guardian if I attack with about 20 BB with Pulsons and EMG Pulsons? Each Pulson will do 7 damage. Zeon is much better as each does 17 damage to the Guardian's shields and eventually they get knocked down. However, I don't have Zeons and it requires a 25000 cost hyper advanced tech to MIRV them. If I can't kill the Guardian with Pulson missiles I will have to rethink that decision to take EMG in subsequent games.

One BUG found: My Feudal Gov't while suffering a 35% Research penalty is still (as in 1.31) suffering the 50% Research treaty penalty!

Time to play a few turns before lunch. .. neilkaz ..