Okay, this is my AAR, or, to be more precise, it's a DAR, a "During Action Report" because I wrote it while playing. My english isn't perfect, so if you find some mistakes, you may correct them.
I made some screenshots, too. They're named after the months&year, so it's quite easy to see where they fit in. One more not: I used Thrull's cool Red Drengin mod. It only changes the color of the Drengin ships and has no furter effect on the game. So if you see some strange red looking ships on the screenshots, you know why. Enjoy!




General idea:
Go for Alliance Victory. Ally with one powerful neighbour, establish save trade routes to him to make use of the +40% trade. If the possibility arises, ally with more than one race. Beat the rest up. Everythink else depends on the situation.


Mar 2180
So far...
My first ColonyShip went north... 4 systems in the sector upove me, there should be at least one useful among them. Bingo - settled on the Aquilae system.
Meanwhile, the USS Hero found a free scout which I sent south and then west, where I found the Drengin. The Hero then explored the southeast corner. I rushed to a constructorto get the military resource in sector 6-7 - this Starbase was of double importance because it extended my range so I could send my second colony ship to the Titus system.
When my scout turned north again, I discoverd the Pithra system in 3-5 - one Class 16, one Class 18 and noone there, wow - but out of my reach. I bought a second contructor on Aquilae (ouch, my money) and built a ColonyShip right after, so I can extend westward and get that preciuous jewel. I hope I won't be to late!
I just contacted the Torians. They've got a lot of systems, but I got more tech. Sold some to them so I can afford this expensive way I'm playing right now. So far, I've been optimizing my spending between research and military. Techs I got right now (traded and researched):
Communiaction Theory, Universal Translator, Weapons theory, Defense Theory, Medical Theory, Proposion Theory, Cold Fusion.
Just researching Impulse Drive to make my ships faster to win the race for Pithra - I miss the +1 speed I usually choose!

Oct 2180
Pithra is a system of high strategic importance.  I send 700M colonists there so I can boost it fast. I hope noone will get there first, else I've wasted a lot of resources. I redirected the Hero to Pithra so it can shoot down foreign colony ships, should there be any. My scout met the Arceans. They got no new techs and nearly no money, so I don't trade with them right now.

Mar 2181
YES! I just landed on Pithra, thanks to the Impulse Drive and a base in Sector 4-5.
Both Titus and Pithra had colonization events which gave me a huge research bonus for choosing the evil path, which I did. As the result, my UI just changed.... I'm an official villian now, and I've got the quite big Torians north of me. I have to be careful about that.
Next steps:
- Build a colony ship in the Pithra system to colonize it's second habitable planet
- build soil enhancement on all planets
- Get Trade and send freighters
- try to get as many resources as possible
- build a basic military so the AIs won't bully me
- sell some tech to do all of this without going bankrupt

Apr 2181
The Hero found a Corvette - send it in orbit around Pithra
The other races have no real army so far, so I should be save for some time.
No contact with Altarian or Yor so far - must be somewhere north beyond the Torians.

Jun 2181
Just leaped over to PithraIII - another event, giving me PQ+7%. I never can resist a PQ bonus, and I'm evil anyway...

Oct 2181
Found the Altarians. Just one system and technological backwarts, so I could sell them a lot and afford to run 100% spending some longer. At the moment I'm running 100% social, as soon as every planet has soil enhancement and habitat improvement, I'll switch to 100% military and build constructors everywhere. So mancy nice resources out there!

Jan 2182
Plan so far: Ally with the Drengin so evil will dominate the galaxy.
Hm, I just found to uncolonized systems in sector 0-6 - I don't think I can get there fast enough, thou. They are in Drengin-space.
I'm used to play on harder levels and I recognize the difference - the AI on "Genius" would have expanded faster and claimed more rescources by now.

May 2182
Found the Yor - hiding in the corner as usual. Where are the Minors??? Haven't met a single minor so far,

Sep 2183
Wow, that went well.I'm now controlling the following resources:
2-4 Influence
2-6 Economic
5-6 Morale
6-4 Military
6-5 Influence
6-7 Military
7-4 Research
Every system has one or two starfighters in orbit - that's just enough at the moment so the AI won't bully me. I'm about to establish three traderoutes (2 from Pithra, 1 on from Titus) to the Drengin in sector 3-7.
Bad thing is, I've fallen behind in the tech race a bit. But before looking after this, I'll set my priority to social for two rounds and build Bankig Centers on every planet to finally get my economy going. I've been relying mainly on the money I got from selling techs so far. Then I'll build Entertainement Networks everywhere and then switch back to doing research.
Ah, and I finally met the Carinoids.

Sep 2184
Met the Alexians some months ago. I like the Alexians, they're paying real good prices for the tech I sell them.
On thing that really pisses me of is that the Yor were faster and got the military resource in sector 5-4. I thought about blowing their starbase up, but it allready has got some defense upgrades and I don't have the firepower yet to deal with that.
I'm thinking about attacking the Altarians. They are weak and they got a nice system in an important positon - it could be used to reach farther north to get closer to the Yor as well as another front against the Torians, because sooner or later it will come to war with them. And the Altarians can't stand me anyway because I'm eeeevil.

Jan 2185
I just bought Aphrodisiacs from the Yor. I wonder what Aphrodisiacs made by robots look like?

Jan 2186
The UP are looking for a place to build the space monster theme park. I vote for the Torians, because I know what havoc these beasts can cause when they break free, especially when the victim is on a low tech-level... did I mention that I'm evil?
My strategy at the moment is:
After building Manufacturing centers everywhere, I go straight for Diplomatic Translators and Gravity Accelerators on my most productive planets while the rest does minor upgrades like research labs.
I hope to trade these tradegoods for some nice techs from the other races, then I will build a little fleet to take out the Altarians.

Jan 2187
Things are geting interesting. The Torians and the Arceans started to pick on the weak Yor and soon went to war with them. In the meantime, my small fleet of 5 Transports and 5 Corvettes is on it's way to take out the Altarians - I won't need more to break through their pathetic defense. And even while my ships are on their way, I'm researching 1D/2D..-Phasing to power them up.
I started to give the Yor some gifts now and then - hoping that they will surrender to me after the Arceans and Torians beat them up.
The Arceans start to worry me a bit - they're developing very good and they don't like me.

Jul 2187
The Yor surrendered to my friends, the Drengin - excellent!

Dec 2187
I easily conquered Antra, the only altarian system (which contains two habitable planets). Meanwhile I built some constructors to upgrade my starbases, focusing on mining to use the resources more effective. The vanishing of the Yor allowed me to finally get the military resource in sector 5-4.
The Terrans and Drengins now have a good position, the Torians look a bit lost in the middle, the Arceans are doing well.
My plan for the future:
 - Transform the friendship with the Drengins into a real alliance
 - push the research to frigates or battleships
 - take out the Torians with assistance from the Drengins
 - depending on the development, decide how to deal with the Arceans thereafter

Sep 2190
The game turned in an unexspected direction when the Drengin attacked the Arceans a year or so ago, and although they haven't conquered any planets yet, the Drengin frigates beat the hell out of the Arceans. As a result of that war, the Torians lost some traderoutes and started to trade with me instead. I bought Interstellar Tactics from them, keeped out of the conflict, but supported the Drengins with some Tech while going for Battleship Technology, which I just discovered.
Amazing enough, the Torians are now friendly towards me because I've become an important trading partner, even so I'm evil. The Drengins are friendly with me anyway.
So I changed my plan - I will start to build Battleships and CombatTransports now and help the Drengins to eliminate the Arceans. At the same time, I will try to improve my relationship with the Torians, so I can win by allying with both the Drengins and Torians.

Apr 2191
A new minor race just turned up in the Unukalhai system next to my Aquilae system. The perfect test for my new ships - I conquered them before they knew what was going on.

Sep 2191
Sector 1-4 as fallen to the Drengin/Terrean power - Lasitus is now mine while the Drengin rule on Severus. Meanwhile, the Torians killed the Carinoids.

May 2192
The Drengins and the Arceans made peace, but I continue to fight the Arceans. They stand no chance against my superior Battleships. I finally got the Drengins to join an Alliance with me.
I got enough ships flying around, so I invest in research, focusing on techs that boost my diplomatic ability or allow new traderoutes so I can work on getting the Torians closer.

Jul 2193
Of cause, sooner or later someone would screw it up. Here is what happend:
As I conquered more Arcean systems and it became obvious that the Arcean Empire is dying, both the Torians and the Drengins joined me and declared war on the Arceans. Very well.
But then some stupid Drengin was so high from making war, not love (or is there really a difference for Drengins?) that they declared war on the Torians as well and asked me as there ally to join. Well, the Drengins are more important for me then the Torians, so I joined although I didn't like it at all. I immediatly tried to fix the situation and bribed the Drengins to make peace with the Torians, which worked fine. Then I tried to make peace with the Torians and they refused. Now I am in war with them because of the stupid Drengins and they are at peace!
Combined with the 3rd coffee I just drunk, this isn't very good for my health. Grah! I really like the build-in MP3 player and changed to some heavy industrial while thinking how to fix the situation.

Mar 2194
I finally could bribe the Torians to peace again before it got bloody. I then started immediatly to build freighters because all our traderoutes were lost in the short "war" and our relationship went to 'cool' again.
Now the Arceans finally surrendered to the Drengin. That leaves only the Torians left to deal with. I'll give one try to ally with them, if this doesn't work or the Drengin interfere again, I'll just wipe them out.

Feb 2196
After some months of heavy bribing, I allied with the Torians and won.
18 Years, that's good I think, but I didn't build much planet improvements or a strong military and I didn't own that much planets because the Drengin got more. So let's see how the score turns up. Well it was fun anyway and that's what counts. :) I'm very excited to see how other players won the map. I never had the opportunity to compare different styles of playing on the same map so far and I think this could be quite interesting. However, I recognized that I'm used to play on harder level, the map was no real problem in spite of the not-so-good starting position.