I wanted to share some tips with new players, but I am by no means an expert and this guide is by no means complete. Please check back for updates and let me know if there are any super tips I missed that you would recommend that I incorporate!

Please rate up, favorite, and comment, and in return I will keep content and discussions rolling.

Endless Space 2 is a truly unique and beautiful take on the 4x genre. This game combines the very best features of your favorite 4x games and spices them up with interesting immersive events, factions, and playstyle options. You can set up the scenarios you want. You can roleplay. You can be a real admiral. You can explore a new and beautifully generated galaxy each time you play. What a great game.

This guide is intended to provide some insight into basic game concepts for someone not necessarily new to 4x, but to the Endless Space universe. If you are new, the learning curve can be relatively steep. I recommend reviewing the very excellent manual provided by Amplitude to get acclimated with important basics before delving too deeply here or in the game, link provided below (and a big THANK YOU to the developers for providing this fine resource which is a welcome rarity these days):

https://steamhost.cn/cdn_akamai_steamstatic_com/steam/apps/392110/manuals/User%27s_Manual_-_Endless_Space_2.pdf

Give this game some patience, learn the finer points, holdfast for those silly bugs to get fixed up, and you are in for a truly deep and exceptional strategy gaming experience.

Choosing game parameters that will suit your playstyle is important to ensuring your experience will be enjoyable and match your preferences. The game gives lot's of options for galaxy type and size, density, and win conditions so be sure to familiarize yourself with them. Spend some time considering how you want to play the game and under what conditions. If you are particularly new you may want to stack this a bit depending on the strength of your faction's strengths, and you may also want to disable some of the more early-aggressor AI factions like the Cravers and Vodyani altogether to give you more bandwidth to learn and expriment.

For a normal size galaxy I would not recommend more than 6-7 AI players. It can be a pain for your galaxy to be overly-saturated with AI factions. This is a good rule of thumb unless you want to be abutted by enemy factions just two or three systems away which to me really nerfs the early game experience--and if they are not friendly, this can be very unpleasant especially for a noobie.

I personally prefer a bit of room to expand and explore early on without lots of opposition and interference, ultimately characterized by a conquest-style playthrough later on. For instance, if I choose the Sophons, I would choose the normal galaxy size with seven opposing factions, choose conquest, supremacy, score, and science victory options, and disable the other victory conditions.

This website will help you customize a game to your liking by providing some more detail around the settings:

https://endlessspace.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxy_settings#Shape

You begin the game with one colonized planet, an exploration vessel, and a colonization vessel. There is a ton of information and a lot going on and early decisions are important. What to do first?

1. Explore your surroundings right away. Remember to send out probes in directions in addition to easily-explored star lanes and prioritize settling nearby systems that offer:

- Large numbers of hospitable planets (population/food) and moons
- Numerous strategic and luxury resources
- Strategically located along star lane chokepoints

At first probes are in short supply so balance probe exploration with anomaly investigation of your early target colony planets, but don't wait forever to investigate anomalies. These are expended if rival factions get to them first. You may miss out on some significant benefits (nice free modules) if you do.

Anomalies on planets that you intend to colonize right away are a good start. With that said I don't necessarily recommend going crazy exploring atmospheric anomalies until 15-20 turns in as early quests will soon offer FIDSI bonuses for exploration.

2. Settle the most hospitable planets in your constellation (terran, mediterannean, oceanic, etc.) first to maximize growth and FIDSI while avoiding unrest problems. Planets that support a high population and do not net significant disapproval penalties are the most desirable as FIDSI value is multiplied per planet by each unit of population settled. High strategic and luxury resource values are also preferred. Be very cautious about colonizing distant constellations and systems in constellations beloning to AI factions early (especially the Vodyani or Cravers) as the time it takes to reach them can make them extremely difficult to hold on to when attacked.

Intermediate choices include arid, steppes and savannah-type planets. Although potential high industrial and science values may be alluring, do not rush to colonize less hospitable planets that yield high disapproval/happiness maluses that may lead to uprisings (e.g. Barren, Lava, toxic). Nab these later and with caution, when your system expansion options become more limited. This is problem is magnified for factions like the Cravers whose slave populations are already grumpy so be careful not to let this problem creep up on you.

Consider that you may not want to colonize a particular planet in a system at all. If a planet has low potential population, no resources, and is stacked with planet type and anomaly approval debuffs, you may want to skip it entirely--or minimally until you have some approval buff improvements in place.

2. A good start to any first colony is building Cerebral Reality and Drone Networks. These offer food, industry, and dust bonuses for cheap upkeep, all of which are sorely needed in the early game. Food will increase your population more quickly, multiplying a system's FIDSI output, and is critical to maintaining mainpower availability for fleets, ships, invasions, etc. Industry will help you build further improvements and enlist new ships in your fleet. Dust will set you up to maintain these new ships and planetary improvements. Next, build an additional colonization vessel and a couple additional explorer vessels, grouping the latter together for maximum defensive and probing capability.

3. Expand steadily, but take care not overextend yourself during early colonization. FIDSI, especially Dust, is hard to come by early-game. It is an expensive activity--if you go and settle too many colonies you will receive large financial (Dust) penalties. At the beginning You can usually only support one outpost until completed. Stick to 1 or 2 active colonies at a time thereafter until you attain a steady flow of resources to support further expansion, and always ensure you stay below your "overcolonization" limit to avoid obscene penalties.

4. Avoid colonizing too close to agressive factions like the Vodyani and Cravers early on until you have suitable defense fleet(s) established. These guys will get real indignant if you settle too close to their systems and will attack you early, potentially catching you off guard, chewing up your resources on defense and worse, impeding your growth. If you do end up with the short stick and find yourself with a colony next to the Vodyani, plan to park ships in orbit right away as they will start leeching off your population.

5. Protect civilian ship transfers. This is a factor during colonization. Do not send population from owned system X through AI system Y to get to target system Z unless you have a fleet parked in system Y. If you do not, these civilian ships will be destroyed en-route.

6. Shoot to achieve special objectives--do not ignore them. These often give some notable FIDSI bonuses to your civilization and in many cases will stimulate expansion to other systems (bonuses to industry and dust especially). Consider your faction synergies during this process, but most importantly, assess if a particular objective is feasible, and act accordingly to reap the rewards.

7. Specialize your systems based on their capabilities. For instance, systems with numerous cold (and later some gas) planets offer a lot of science, so focus on building science-based improvements based on those base system properties. Improvements are expensive to maintain in the early game, so avoid spamming improvements in systems that do not complement system specialties, have very few colonizable planets, and systems with a very small maximum population, at least until Dust availability is not a problem.

8. Optimize your empire. Make sure to use your empire tab to assess a holistic view of the systems under your control. See where is good at what and who is grumpy to help prioritize your constructions. On the system level, perform a system scan to see its base strengths, then tailor your improvements and specializations to the top one or two features of the system. This can be critical to progress when Dust is at a premium.

In times of peace occasionally move population around to places that they like to further contribute to the optimization. Minor races have certain preferred planet types and luxury resources as well as offer various synergies. To move these population units you need level 2 modernization/development granting you the spaceport, and most importantly, safe passage to get there.

Sound early technology choices will set you up for future success in terms of economic and miltary prowess. To an extent these need to be tailored to your FIDSI conditions and surroundings. Food, Dust, and Industrial-related tech are typically more important in the early game, but Science and Military tech should be considered by the first 10-20 turns.

One must-have tech as soon as possible is Baryonic Shielding, which allows your ships to travel outside of star lanes. This is especially important so you can quickly identify and prioritize the best prospective colonies available. Another good early choice is off-world agri-business, as this will allow you to begin courting nearby minor factions into your empire.

Generally choose tech that the game suggests that can be completed in the fewest turns and this will accerate the higher tier research. Prioritize reseach as follows:

1. Tech that increases your exploration capabilities, especially movement, travel outside of star lanes, and (later) wormhole access. The best available constellations may be just outside your own.

2. Tech that will enable you to colonize useful nearby planets. Focus on planets as described above, targeting comfy planets with a high potential for rapid expansion (many populatation slots)and good strategic positioning (star lane chokepoints). With that said, there is no particularly need to rush all the planet research. Colonize the best systems, build up the available planets, and colonize the rest when the timing is suitable.

3. Tech that synergistically increase FIDSI production, Industry and Dust are an early must. Later, technology that unlocks planet specializations (wrench below the planet in system view) is great for a cheap, fast boost especially to established, populous systems.

4. Hull and fleet size tech, which will enable you to deal with increasingly signifiant threats. Later, tech that increases your total number of module slots for existing hulls is awesome. If you are a blobber, you will also be interested in the later empire cap tech.

5. Influence tech so your stuff does not get absorbed by neighboring major factions. Use the Edenization planet specialization for a quick boost.

6. Tech increasing your happiness, to maximize FIDSI production and prevent future uprisings. This is usually pretty low on the totem poll unless you really do stuff to piss off your people.

Queue up a few technologies and reassess as things develop! These are a good rule of thumb to begin, but consider the dynamic conditions of your game, what you are dying for right now, and what you think you will need shortly.

Also, consider the timing of research completion with respect to what you are realistically actually able to implement. For instance, you are in a defensive war and building up your navy. Meanwhile, you are eyeing a nearby system. Do not rush to Lava planet colonization to nab a neighboring system when you do not have any queue space for a colony ship or money for colonization! All those turns you spent researching cannot be put to use right away, whereas instead you could have researched a new hull and put it into use, immediately improving the staying power of your new fleet. All the while that sweat new lava tech is sitting on the sidelines in disuse!

You are granted one hero at the start of the game. Examine your Dust income and be cautious in assigning your first hero to a task on turn 1. While assigning them to your first system out of the gate will grant valuable rapid and early experience, you will sacrifice a lot of Dust due to high upkeep costs that could otherwise have been spent on an additional vessel or two for your fleet. It may be best to wait 10 or so turns before assigning a governor. This is not an absolute rule, however, as you may have a wealthy faction or may be able to pick up some early skills that will boost your Dust production, so consider this a factor if you have enough to get started.

If you choose a high faction density scenario it may be best to start your hero off in a fleet support role when you have built a small fleet. Heroes offer strong benefits even in early combat as they do not consume fleet capacity and offer bonuses and supportive modules to your forces. They essentially increase your fleet capacity by +1 which can be a big boon early on (5/4 is a 25% combat bonus, specialty modules excluded!), particularly if all you have are exploration fleets and you end up in a big scuffle.

Tailor your heroes according to their strengths and political tendencies. Choose heroes that reflect your preferred political ideology and groom them based on their role. Hero roles and choosing the right hero according to your needs when they become available plays an important part in their efficacy.

Need a boost to your main combat fleet? Choose a Guardian hero as they will provide the best skill-based bonuses to your fleet's combat capabilities and lend the greatest combat damage contributions due to their numerous ship weapons module options.

Need to improve a system's approval rating, productivity, or boost to strength and popularity of a party? Choose a Counselor hero. These heroes are adept at system administration and give great system bonuses.

Heroes may be cross-trained to do both combat and administrative jobs, but the best heroes are specialized for the role for which they are needed!

For most factions early diplomacy expensive, so choose wisely. You can engage in diplomacy with major and minor (technology required) factions. Try to assimilate minors early by getting friendly and then assisting with relatively easy tasks. If you have a surplus of Influence, try to obtain peace terms to avoid cold-war sieges, protect your supply lines and trade routes, abduction of your population by vampires, and more. This is all that is required to obtain friendly relations with neighbors and puts the ball in your court as far as options rather than being stuck in a reactionary rut.

Avoid major conflict very early. Use the first 50 or so turns to colonize the best locations to develop your infratructure and maximize your resources for when war is necessary to move forward. Be wary of factions growing agressive towards you, which typically happens if you bump borders.

Appeasing nearby minor factions early on is often helpful. They will provide you an increasing level of their produced resources based on the strength of your relations. Prioritize factions that are close by and share your ideology to synergize with your empire. Later you may choose passive (pay or wait) or agressive (declare war) assimilation options. The former is particuarly useful early-game when you do not have strong military forces at you disposal. This can be further buffed by exploring their curiosities for them (but only one at a time).

Maintain a fleet in being. The best sort of diplomacy is the kind that you control. Maintaining a "fleet in being," or a naval force that provides influence simply by means of existence, will deter declarations of war initiated by the AI. If the AI calculates that you are deficient, especially militarily underpowered, they will be more likely to declare war on you. This can spiral out of control if you are already at war and suffer some serious defeats. By turn 50 make sure you are cranking up your naval strength full kilter and keep it ticking up.

Become a powerhouse--solo or with a friend. If you will allow me two cliche expressions in the same statement, the AI can smell blood in the water and will take you to the cleaners if you do not keep up your relative strength. A measure of this is the diplomatic pressure shown when you are interacting with a faction, and is based on the aggregated power of your alliance. Maximing the resources at your disposal puts you in a position of power, and I don't just mean militarily. If you are solo, spend effort optimizing your empire. If you are lagging behind, find a good ally and this will increase your diplomatic pressure, allowing your requests and demands to be accepted more readily.

Do not deal with empires that are sneaky towards you. Even after you fork over a pile of goods, they are likely to rescind their terms immediately, wasting you a lot of resources and causing you a lot of hassle. I am not sure there is any way of dealing with them except knocking them down a few notches. These guys are going to pounce on you when they get the chance, so get ready for this.

Further avoid situations where you may become embrioled in conflict with multiple major factions at once. If this occurs seek peace with all but one of the factions to prevent overextension.

Choosing a fleet composition that will enable you to defeat any foe encountered is an important consideration. My philosophy is that more, better quality and better deployed is better than a few big vessels. I divide fleet compositons into four categories:

1. Exploration fleets. These groups of exploration vessels should be well-equipped, comprising small-hulled, fast ships with strong exploratory anddefensive capabiltiies for maximizing your ability to scout territory quickly while maintaining capability to resist and survive attack. Use vessels intended for exploration and modules maximizing the specified characteristics. Spare no expense if you want them to live. In the early game, these serve the obvious purpose. Refit them in the late game with more brawn and use them as fast-attack forces.

2. Battle fleets.These are your bread-and-butter armadas that should be diversified sufficiently to defeat multiple foes, and will be your primary instrument of defense and expansion. These should most always be maxed-out in terms of capacity and bolstered by heroes. These comprise a handful of the largest hulls you can field equipped with your best available modules, supported by numerous smaller escort vessels.

3. System patrol fleets. These may consist of anywhere from a single corvette to a couple flotillas of small and medium-hull ships tasked with hanging around and defending your frontline colonies that are at highest risk of incursions against pirates, privateers, leechers, minor invasions, you name it. (somehow) It only takes one ship to siege down a system. They should field flexible moderate to strong defensive/offensive modules, but may not be full capacity fleets, first rate quality, or necessarily able to get around much.

4. Siege fleets. Smaller fleets focused on small and medium-hull ships intended to reduce system defenses. These include protector ships boasting large numbers of manpower modules with some siege modules for planetary landings. Park these in enemy systems cleared and defended by combat fleets when it is time to take the fight to the ground.

I would like to mention that I tried out dedicated repair ship and repair fleets of differing compositions to send my damaged ships off to for repairs after a bloody battle, but these did not seem to be effective enough to merit the cost or work. You may want to mix in some repair modules on, say, a handful of light escort craft to help keep your ships combat-ready when away from your home systems.

Each faction has access to various modules that augment their capabilities. The number of options will be further-varied based on your research and exploratory findings.

Don't settle for the predetermined ship loadout variants. Moreover, ship design is one of the best developed and most entertaining features of the game--don't miss out! Use all the available module slots (stock ships often do not) but vary quality according to roles and value to manage cost. Create ship variants to fulfill fleet niches while considering available strategic resources. All the while you will become intimately familiar with the capabilities of your ships. When designing ships you should consider in particular the capabilities of:

- local pirate ships
- agressive neighbors
- target factions

With these in mind you may choose upon review of spotted forces more ballistic or energy-based weapons and/or defense, but be wary of over-specialization which could narrow you operational capabilties. Also note that the best hulls and modules will cost you sparsely available strategic resources.

A reminder that slugs are particularly excellent multi-purpose weapons that although have low base damage should not be entirely replaced or neglected. Having these sprinkled throughout your fleet will offer you a sort of AA bubble. I have had some quite small hulls prevail against even battleships equipped with these, largely in part as they were able to completely obliterate incoming torpedo fire. They:

- double as defensive and offensive weapons that will shoot down incoming torpedoes and strike craft
- bypass shields
- benefit from kinetic module boosts

As a military buff I tend to organize my ship designs according to old-fashioned conventional roles. These have proven to be versatile and effective against AI foes as they typically choose extremely specialized roles, but offer me a lot of operational flexibility.

Below are a few suggestions as to how you may consider designing your ships. Being from the Admiral Thrawn school, I find more numerous and flexible tends to be better than few and strong in terms of operation flexibility. An array of small ships with no more than one or two token large hulls for critical system defense and battlefleets is highly effective. Two or three supporting each below it works well. It is particularly nice to target one escort/frigate ship in each flotilla for the buffs. Note that attacker hulls tend to favor more weapons slots, while protector hulls draw fire from opposing attacker hulls and have a lot of support module slots:

Exploration fleets: potent, versatile mobile forces that can double as system patrols. High quallity modules (mobility and defense especially) to ensure survivability.

Scout.
- mostly very small explorer, small, late-game maybe some additional medium (protector?) hulls.
- strong mid-long range offensive weapons
- Include probes, speed and evasion, and some weapons modules (slugs, maybe multi-range lasers).
- Good armor and some shielding.

Siege Fleets: Prioritize manpower/siege modules. Position after clearing heavy opposition for conquering systems. Low to moderate-quality modules.

Assault Ship.
- Mostly small and late-game maybe some medium protector hulls preferred.
- Minimal defensive weapons modules (slugs).

System Patrol Fleets: Prioritize damage and defense/evasion modules. These ships should focus on multipurpose tanking rather than speed or specialization in order to deal with a variety of threats. Moderate quality modules according to resource availability.

System Patrol Craft.
- Small and later medium attack hulls.
- Versatile short to long-range weaponry (slugs and later multi-range lasers).
- Balanced armor and shielding.
- Weapons modifiers (e.g. projectile buffs).

Battle Fleets: Prioritize speed, evasion and specialized damage modules for good mobility and potent destructive capability at various engagement ranges. Use highest quality modules.

Corvette.
- Small attack hull.
- Balanced offensive/defensive weapons (multi-range lasers and slugs).
- Balanced armor and shielding.
- Weapons modifiers (e.g. projectile buffs).

Light Escort.
- Small protector hull.
- Defensive weaponry (slugs).
- Balanced armor and shielding.
- Various supportive/defensive modules (e.g. repair and fleet speed modules).

Destroyer.
- Small (or late-game medium) attack hull.
- Good armor and some shielding modules.
- Full torpedo loadouts. And wow are these fun to watch.

Cruiser.
- Medium attack hull.
- Moderate armor and strong shielding.
- Offensive-focused weapons (strong short-range lasers, some slugs and multi-range lasers if practicable, maybe a torpedo slot).
- Offensive modules (e.g. ballstic and energy buffs).

Frigate.
- Medium protector hull.
- Balanced armor and shielding.
- Balanced and long-range weapons (many slugs, some torpedoes, multi-range lasers if practicable).
- Various supportive/defensive modules (e.g. most and best protective modules, improved projectiles and flotilla buff modules).

Battleship.
- Large attack hull.
- Moderate armor and strong shielding.
- Offensive-focused, highest-powered close-range/direct-fire weapons (many short-range lasers, some multi-range lasers, some slugs).
- Various offensive modules (e.g. weapons buff modules).

Carrier.
- Large attack hull.
- Moderate armor and shielding.
- Full bomber squadrons and long range lazors.
- Various offensive and squadron buff modules.

These designs recommedations will allow you to outfit multi-purpose flotillas with good anti-torpedo defense yet strong offense coupled with balanced protection in most all scenarios you will encounter. If you do not mind having a million hulls, go crazy and try out designing light and heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, and however other many hull types you can imagine! With support from your smaller vessels, your strongest damage-dealing ones should be able to get in close enough to deliver their most devastating payloads. This is a good approach as your biggest hulls offer the biggest weapons modifiers which couple well with the most powerful loadouts.

Finally bear in mind that like many things one size does not fit all. Consider special modules, damage capabilities, and choose the ones that meet your needs. For instance, even if I suggested lasers it is entirely possible that your slug tech can deal more damage, so it is worth considering.

Fleet capacity is an important factor an should be monitored, expanded and exploited as soon as the techs improving this becomes available. Particularly early-game you will want to group your ships together and maintain the highest allowable fleet capacity to preserve and maximize the capability of your forces. This goes for any force with the exception of colonziation groups which will generally be limited to 1 or 2 vessels, which need to receive protection from your other fleet types.

This applies to exploration forces as well as combat forces. For example, a fleet of 4/4 exploration vessels admittedly sacrifices the large area coverage of four individual vessels setting out in different directions, but has a large concentration of probes for exploration purposes and an optimal chance to fend off trouble! As your fleet sizes get larger, your main battle fleets will inch ahead in total size.

As you start out in a Cold War with each major faction and always run the risk of encountering pirate forces, having large fleets will give you a good chance of retaining your existing ships and defeating troublemakers at each encounter.

Compose your fleets of versatile vessels complemented by some specialized ships capable of dealing a punch at the extreme ranges. A nice mid-game battle fleet might consist of:

18/18:

0/18 x1 Guardian Hero
3/18 x3 Light Escorts
4/18 x4 Corvettes
2/18 x2 Destroyers
3/18 x1 Frigate
6/18 x2 Cruiser

This task force has potent short and long-range focused ships as well as many smaller escorts supporting with multi-range weapons and good AA. A standard deployment might be as follows:

- Destroyers grouped into a long or medium-range flotilla (middle is nicest as they can assist the other flotillas well)
- Frigate and cruisers grouped into the remaining two short and/or medium range flotillas
- Miscellaneous smaller vessels with multi-range capability and AA screen equally distributed amongst the three

A pretty potent mid-late game system patrol fleet may be comprised of the following:

2/6 x2 Corvettes
1/6 x1 Light Escort
3/6 x1 Cruiser

Your tactical choice can be the deciding factor in an engagement, even if your fleet strength is significantly less (< 1/2!) than that of the enemy's! Choose a set of short, mid, and long range tactics to deal with situations tailored to enemy ship types and likely deployment strategies. I find the ones that provide bonuses to defense, fleet experience and offence to be the most useful, with attention to the expected residence time of your fleet in an enemy system, as your ships cannot repair in enemy airspace.

For key engagements, review the advanced deployment screen. This will tell you the range strength and defensive bonuses of ships involved as well as their likely flotilla deployments to give you a feel for your best tactical options.

Review all the capabilities of enemy ships before choosing a tactic. Consider the most dangerous enemy ships and what they can do with respect to the number of lesser supporting ships when you make your selection. The AI will often choose an exclusive short-range loadout, giving a massive advantage to your long range ships (I'm looking at you destroyers).

Favor defensive/offensive tactics during prolonged sieges of enemy airspace, and experience buffs when you know you know you can win and repair in local space.

If you do not expect total victory consider concentrating forces in 1 or 2 flotillas to maxize damage to an enemy fleet and minimize damage to your own, preserving your forces for future fights. The outcome will often be one enemy flotilla meandering off in a completely impotent direction. Scattered, you may not be able to win in a single battle, but if you can knock out a flotilla in the first engagement you may be set up to finish the job the next turn.

Make sure you review the post-battle advanced reports for larger skirmishes. These will provide invaluable information regarding how your deployment elections fared.

The best defense is, of course, the best offense. There are two modes by which you can lose systems--combat and influence.

Preventing situations involving the former is fairly obvious. Having a fleet in being and having imrpvovements that will allow for more ground troop options and increased defensive capacity on border worlds is great, but a strong local fleet presence is paramount when dealing with agressive factions in preventing population loss and improvement destruction. Even better to position powerful fleets in blockade positions in systems belonging to bordering enemy factions as this will put the enemy on their back foot and prevent damage to your own systems.

If the latter cannot be accomplished, fleets of system patrol craft stationed in at-risk locations patrolling your front and interior lines are extremely helpful in relieving minor sieges in a turn or two. These are fleets of ships that are well-equipped for defense and damage-dealing, although they may not be supported by heroes and may be less moblile. Best case, they will prevent minor enemy incursions. Worst, they will delay the enemy and the subsequent siege process that reduces your defenses until your battle fleet(s) arrives to relieve the system.

Expect enemy attacks anywhere and everywhere, especially if you cannot defend the entirety of your empire's borders. The AI is pretty clever with this and will slip deep into the interior of your empire to exploit your most poorly defended systems when war comes. The problem is that your systems' passive defenses do not increase proportionally based on your development and population levels.

I recommend at least one corvette in every hangar, and Tractable Armaments on every system you have got to increase their defensive resistance which will provide increased manpower and the ability to bombard then incoming enemy. Key and remote systems that you cannot spare fleet defense to protect should be bolstered with improvements that further buff ground defense capabilities. Moreover, move quickly to relieve sieges as all the while your precious system improvements and population will be getting obliterated!

Incursion of opposing faction influence spheres is perhaps the most insidious. You can lose systems without a chance for a fight. Make sure border worlds are fortified with improvements that not only provide military defense, but influence bonuses to push back the spheres of opposing systems regardless if they are well-fortified or not, as even hard aerial assets cannot stand against this sort of offense! For a good influence boost, try the following starting with the easiest to implement:

- Use Edenization planetary specialization
- Place a hero with influence boost in the system
- Place imperial colonists in the system
- Build influence improvements

Do not neglect the empire technology wedge as most of the influence-increasing tech's come a bit later in the game.