After a few days playing the new 1.5 patch i think it is time to collect some tips for begginers. Most of these are tips collated from older and better players and they mostly take account of the 1.5 Vanilla game. Note that some mods (Nova, Hyperion, etc.) make lots of changes that can invalidate some of these tips:

- Regardless of wich house you select, the first thing you should do is to use the starting units to attack and conquer the Imperial Eye fort. At the start of the game the Imperial Eye ministry is not controlled by any faction, so the declaration of war from the ministry does not have any kind of effect, and having a second fort from the start helps a lot.

- Never build militia legions - they are not worth it, it is fine to use the ones you start with, mostly as cannon fodder, but there are much better uses for metal than wasting it on militia legions.

- An early research goal is to get the tech for Tracker Legions - while intended as a recon and exploration unit, their cheap price, quick build time, superb mobility and ok combat stats make then a very effective infantry unit - they are nearly as good as an Infantry Legion, but with better mobility, cheaper price and better recon abilities - in the end i recommend building Tracker Legions instead of Infantry Legions, as the Trackers are a better investment of metal than Infantry, even if Infantry Legions have better combat stats and armor, as the Trackers better mobility make them more useful. Until i manage to get some kind of Powered Armor i mostly produce Trackers on my forts.

- There is a lot of discussion about what is better early game: Frigates or Space Fighter/Bombers, and a lot of players did complex calculations of both, but in resume: early game Space Fighters/Bombers are way better than building Frigates for early space defense - resource wise Space Fighters/Bombers are way cheaper and easier to produce and can make your planets impregnable from attackers. On the attack Frigates are slightly cheaper than a equivalent Space Carrier+Fighter/Bombers force, but even then the Space Carrier+Fighter/Bombers are a superior force because it is cheaper to replace destroyed Fighter/Bombers than Frigates.

- Most players consider the Imperial Eye the weakest of the Ministries you can get, but there is some very interesting uses you can have with this ministry: First of all, you should use the units you have in the homeworld of all other factions to explore your adversaries planets; Second, you should use the forts to build more units (Trackers are a good unit to produce with these forts) and build stacks to conquer Ruins on the enemy planets, you can get lots of resources and even high-tech units in Ruins, and they will belong to your house and not to the ministry, and finally, you get a lot of Spy and Lander units with the ministry that you can use to attack in Byzantium II (Spies are one of the few units that can be used for battles in Byzantium II).

- If you have a good electronic production it is worth to produce Spies/Assassins and use them to attack the Imperial Guard in Bizantium II and capture some very useful cities. The Arborium next to the Imperial Eye enclave is a very good early target.

- Some players like to attack and conquer the Agora in their homeworld at the start of the game to get a lot of resources early on, while others prefer to leave the Agora intact so you can buy more resources from the League. My prefered strategy is to leave the Agora intact, as you rarely have the production capacity to use the advanced resources you can get by conquering the Agora early-game, but both strategies are valid.

- It is only useful to research procribed techs if you need the tech to build some unit that will gave you a good advantage and you will have time to built the unit(s) before the Church Inquisitors reach your labs. After producing the units you want you should strike the proscribed tech so the Inquisitors leave you alone. This is easier for the factions that have homeworlds farther from Holy Terra (Decados, Al-Malik).

- If a unit gets the plague, unless it is a high-tech unit you cannot produce yet, it is better to disband the unit than allowing it to infect other units/cities.

- Remember that you only get the effects of Relics after you research Theurgy.

So, anyone have more tips to share?

- The number of votes you have depends on number of Sceptors (however it's spelled) you posses - they are physical units chilling out in factions Palace - with a bit of a luck you can do early smash & grab on close faction - use your transports to ferry out your units, you can even take the power armor infantry from Byzantium, AI probably won't start fight there anytime soon - land them next to your victim's Palace and get them - you will be at war, but the chance is early on there are not many units around and you can wipe all but one House's Nobles and getting a boost in votes. Taking a Noble with Battlemaster trait helps (though risky, bunched up Nobles have annoyingly high Close attack and combat bonuses). Works best early on, AI tends to have quite a bit of units after first few turns.

- For previous point - you can use Imperial Eye to do that too. Disadvantage is you can only do it after first election at earliest (so more enemy units), plus is you have fort already in place and more units to use.

- you can load space fighters into Bulk haulers to use them as poor man's carrier. I do believe you have to unload them first but AFAIK (if they didn't change it) - loaded units don't lose movement points by jumping, so you can unload them as soon as they arrive and they are good to go

- you can move units (and cargo) in space from freighter to freighter, that means you can pony express your units fast with multiple freighters

- you can ferry expendable unit to rival House's planet and use it to wake up ruins - one unit lost for you, stack of angry Warlocks or Symbiots for your enemy

- cities that produce resources (farm, mine, well, arboretum...) exploit two hex radius and need 4 hex radius of free space - space-wise it's more efficient to build them in zig zag pattern to get most coverage, but do consider tiles and resources

- industrial cities (chem, ports, labs, electronics....) don't exploit tiles and don't need space, you can build them wherever

- you can actually strike out technology (lab->database->strike) to save on upkeep, you will keep all the tech you discovered that it led to, but if you ever need to, you will have to research it again (so a bit of a risk)

edit: typos

From earlier playthroughs, haven't played the latest version (yet):

-- If you combine Tracker Legions with an Assault Lander you can uncover a large part of the map quickly.

(Load --> Fly to Space --> Land : Suborbital flights!!! ).

-- I found out that four Armor Units with two or three Mobile Artillery units create a very effective and very mobile battle group!! You can also add a couple of Gunships for additional fire support!!

-- Build Roads!!!!!

Later in the game, I like to surround my labs with other structures except for one hex.

I then research proscribed tech.

When the Inquisitors come, I hit them with a stack of low direct / close value units and some arty. Have fast units nearby to chase the routed units.

You can then channel them, hit them with a ton of pillows and then capture them.

I did this in my last 1.4 game but I think it should still work on 1.5.

Maybe not worth it for some but for me - getting the "odd" / exotic units like Xyll warbeast, Symbiots and Inquisitors puts some nice spice in my House's military.

When a space ship with Ranged Space guns (dreadnought or cruiser) lands it will return fire if attacked by a PTS unit. So I often capture or build a city within range of said PTS units and then land some or all of my fleet. Ideally you want a two or three to one ratio of ships to PTS units.

If you have cluster of cities with PTS units, it is sometime possible to isolate one or two of them by careful siting of the city you intend to land in.