Preturn: I look around at the state of the galaxy and things look pretty good overall. Unfortunately our tech situation relative to the Silicoids is a bit weak. Most of our ship designs are pretty out of date as well. And our research distribution looks pretty wacky... that's easily fixed, though. I even out research except for a slight emphasis on computers and planetology. I find that this is the best general purpose research allocation except in the earliest part of the game. Sure we need Omega-V bombs... but there's a lot of other things we need too. Even when you're researching something that seems useless, like range 9 fuel cells, don't forget that making progress in every tree is important too.
So, having done that, I decide my objective for the turn is to try to make some progress toward evening things up with the Silicoids. I decide that the best way to do this is to capture a couple planets for tech. The Psilons are an easy target, with their weak shields, but we can't really get too much off them that's useful -- Andrium armour, Exoskeletons, Toxic bases, and that's about it. Bleh. I decide to go for a juicier target -- Paladia. It's conveniently near several of our worlds, it doesn't have a ton of bases up, it's a relatively small world, and it's rich. Plus the Silicoids have good RC tech, so it has a lot of factories; we'll get some good tech for taking it. The Psilons on the other hand, are stuck with RC II -- only their biggest worlds have enough factories to be worth capturing, from a tech point of view. But we already have a lot of shipbuilding points invested at Meklon and Kholdan, so we might as well use them to good effect on the Psilon frontier. Here, I pick Mentar for my target. We'll need a strong world near Psilon territory to be able to stage future invasions, and like all homeworlds it's a juicy target with lots of potential to be a powerhouse.
I scrap our existing bombers, our NPGs, and our las-3s as obsolete and not enough left to be worth preserving. Instead I design two new bombers, FusB 4.0 and FusB 4.1. The former is more expensive but has BC IV, whereas the latter is less expensive and has BC I, but the main reason for having two types of bomber is to force the AI to shoot at one stack while the other goes in to wipe out the bases. Even though the Silicoids have shield 11, they have little ECM, so our bombers will hit regularily and, with BC IV, have enough of a accuracy advantage to push the average damage on a fusion bomb up from 12.5 to about 16 or so. Research in our empire grinds to a vitual halt as I start shipbuilding nearly everywhere; I plan to build two more ARS 4.0 at Fierias and Meklon but otherwise build mainly bombers.
Silicoid Front: In the west, I build a fleet of about 200 bombers and one ARS 4.0, which concentrates at Trax. Once it's ready to go, I coordinate an invasion force of nearly 400 cats in two waves to take Paladia. This is a serious hit to our economy, but the invasion force outnumbers the rocks at Paladia by 6:1, so I feel confident. Before I can send the fleet in, I notice that the rocks have just researched Planetary Shield X -- this makes it all the more imperative that we strike now, while our bombers can still do damage through the Silicoids' shielding.
I send in the ships, timed to arrive with the first wave of troops. The Silicoids have very little shipping guarding Paladia, and what there is is obsolete; I mainly have to worry about the bases. Our bombers can only manage to kill 2-3 bases per turn, but the Silicoids only have 9 bases, and can't kill our bombers fast enough to stop them. We lose 50 bombers but take out the planetary defenses. Our first wave of troops lands... 231 cats manage to kill 53 rocks, leaving 12 behind. Fortunately I have another wave of about 155 cats incoming, and the next turn they finish the job, with enough left to fill the planet. We capture Class VI deflectors, Terraforming +40, BC VI, Stinger Missles, Nuclear Engines, and the big one, Tritanium Armor -- the Silicoids highest level construction tech, and a big boost to our construction level, as well as a boost to our gropo capabilities. No fusion rifles or PDS, but I'm not complaining; the terraforming is nice too since we didn't have any, and Stingers are always handy. With the capture of shield VI, we start researching Cloaking.
Psilon Front: In the east, our ARS and hyper-X boats easily brush off the Psilon attacks at Kakata; they are all small ion cannon fighters, which don't pose a threat to either our bases or our ARS. I build a new fleet of 1 ARS and nearly 300 bombers; I can build so many bombers largely because I converted a mostly-built ARS at Kholdan. I send these, along with half the hyper-X boats from Kakata, to Mentar, and coordinate an invasion of about 150 cats at Mentar, which had about 75 pop at the time. Our cats win with about 40 remaining, but Mentar only has 150 factories (must have got bombed at some point) and we only pick up ECM III. Plus, of course, a nice planet, but one in serious need of development. It'll be some time before we can use this world as a troop base for further conquests in the area.
Late turns: Nothing much other than rebuilding our population from the attacks on Paladia and Mentar, terraforming and building infrastructure everywhere, and trying to stand up Paladia and Mentar. We also got a couple minor tech thefts during my turn, but nothing to write home about. Paladia is nearly done maxing out; it has its Class V shield and a single base, and will need more. I'd use it as a source of reserve funds from here on out, at least until we're ready for another round of shipbuilding. Mentar has still got a long way to go, and many of our other worlds are also still working on new factories to go with their increased populations. There are a few smallish fleets coming in at Mentar, and some silicoid troop transports at Paladia, but nothing serious. Mentar is still pretty vulnerable if someone does come knocking, though. Additionally, you can probably consider our current bomber fleet as obsolete against the Silicoids, now that they have Class X shields, but they are still good against the Psilons. Most of our bombers are concentrated at Kakata, though I left a few back around Exis for spud-patrol duty to knock out Silicoid colonization attempts in our back yard. We'll need to wait for a better bomb before we can seriously consider going after the Silicoids; armoured exoskeleton would be nice too, but not strictly necessary as this turn's results should demonstrate. Omega V bomb is now in the %ages, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long before thinking about going on the offensive again.
The save:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=147124&stc=1&d=1170480540
Roster:
dathon
Stup
Zed --> just played
Olorin --> UP NOW
Liq --> On Deck
Iam3Irian
Send more cats to Kronos... it's a uh... peace envoy, yeah.
.Start terraforming the empire. 
