Master Of Orion II

• Easy mode is Omniscient, Telepathic and Creative.

• Tech trading is really really useful. For this reason, don't take Repulsive, and try to stay friends with everyone right up until you backstab them like the space scum you are.

• Creative is the best attribute, even after the last patch made it more expensive. It's also fun, and lets you try out more things in one playthrough.

• Pressing the Z key during battle does superfast autocombat. You'll thank me after you've tried to sit through a 200 vs 200-ship battle royale.

• The hardest AI civs are the Sakkra and Silicoid. The Trilarians and Psilons can get bad too, but they are generally friendly.

• Your weapons get additional mods as you tech up, so check back on older weapons to see if they're better than new weapons. Load up small ships with missiles (Nuclear missiles equipped with MIRV are optimal) instead of beam weapons. I forget the reason why, but I think it's because your targeting computers blow in the early game. You can also tech up for armor piercing, auto-firing Mass Drivers.

• If you're making a race, never invest in +Farming. Toward the end of the game, a couple colonies can provide food for your entire empire without too much effort.

• If you steal an enemy ship and scrap it, you get their sweet, sweet tech. This holds especially true for the Antarans. However, even the smallest Antaran ship is going to put up a hell of a fight against being captured, and I think they self destruct the second they're disabled.

• You will probably come back to this game on and off again for at least the next 10 years.

• Missile ships are excellent to start off with. Make them only have 2 lots of missiles rather than 5, you can fit more on. Sure they'll be the occasional battle where you're left with ships with no weapons left on them but a lot of the time you can turn a narrow victory into a decisive one if you up your alpha strike.

• Build housing. When making new colonies, ship out 3-5 guys from one of your larger colonies to get the colony on its feet as a high population brings victory and two colonies growing very quickly is better than one colony growing slowly.