It's a Phidi galaxy out there

[Noyyau]

I've been playing with the Phidi again, 99 stars, normal density, abundant planets, hard difficulty, circular galaxy shape.
Now that I know what I'm doing, things have gone quite well. Compared to the "dense" setting, the longer travel times between stars (and the galaxy shape spreading factions even further) have allowed me to set up my fundamental core worlds before any AI interference (though being Phidi, everybody loves me anyway).
Core worlds being: Tendao all markets (keeping the starting factory until a proper factory planet is set up); Oluz all mines (the few that can be built anyway, until I find some yorals and orthins); the first neighbouring systems contains Pell so that gets a farm+market and then all labs (Pell at least are good for research); next system over has a splendid medium size island world which I set up as a factory planet... which then receives a supergrain bonus as soon as I finish the space station. Oh well, later on it'll become all-farms, but for the time being I need it to spam a few missile destroyers to clear out the local star harpies (who are squatting in a wonderful system with a large island world, my future pure-factory), and then pump out colony ships.
Fundamental early techs are: nuclear missiles and missile destroyers (for the harpies and pirates), the first farm upgrade, the first strategic speed upgrade.
Then work towards the market upgrade (the social techs being cheaper for the Phidi), increased pop growth, then lab, mine and factory upgrades.
Meanwhile, exploration (with a couple outposts for extra range) reveals that immediate neighbours are Ashdar Teros clockwise and the Gremak further out, and anticlockwise the Yoral and then the Orthin. The Yoral especially seem slow to expand, and I manage to settle along the circle up to the Orthin.
The couple marauders in the area are extremely useful, both for population acquisition (Teros for the factory world and to settle the few arids in my area, and Orthin and Yoral to make better use of all those vents and ice climate zones) and for mercenaries: as soon as they are available, the Command Cruisers are wonderful ships. Cloaked and with assault shuttles/tanks, it wouldn't even need weapons most of the time. Just brazenly park it near an enemy ship, laugh as most weapons miss, board and capture. The rest of the fleet (those same few missile destroyers from the early harpy clearing) are there simply to replenish crew and keep enemy point defense busy. Pity that only 3 command cruisers are ever available, even into late game (though as soon as I can build carriers and possibly acquire the Gremak distorsion generator, I don't really need any more).
A few more mercs are hired as distractions and to bring down planetary defenses, but most of the fleet is made of troop transports (and the phidi double-cargo transports, also filled with tanks).
And trade transports of course, those are constantly built to keep up with the needs of the expanding empire (both for population transport and to use those extra trade routes from the new markets).
Back to the story: Yoral and Teros are happy to sign Alliances relatively soon (I'm assuming Phidi have a substantial positive modifier to diplomacy), and the Teros ask to be annexed the same turn that suddenly the Yoral want to declare war on them! Luckily for me, once the Teros are annexed, I can still "agree" to the Yoral request to attack a faction that doesn't even exist anymore... and everybody's happy.
The first true war is against the Gremak, though with all the legacy Teros escort carriers (with fighters and bombers) and my own invasion/capture carriers (with shuttles/tanks) the Gremak have no chance. And by conquering them I get the distortion generator to refit my carriers into nigh-untouchable kleptomaniacs.
After the Gremak conquest there's an intense period of massive population resettling, while also establishing contact with the rest of the factions: the Ashdar Haduir are now my neighbours clockwise, and become allies in due time, while the Tinkers are gobbled up by the Haduir and Humans right when my scouts get there.
Unfortunately the Yoral cancel the alliance with me when I refuse to attack the Ashdar Haduir, at least the Haduirs don't cancel the alliance when I refuse their request to attack the Yorals. Seriously guys, you two are on opposite sides of the galaxy and both factions' ships take at least 15 turns to get to the other side!
Meanwhile, the Humans and Orthin have also been slugging it out, though being neighbours they have actually been fighting and decimating each other's fleets and populations.
I'm now unquestionably leading in population, industrial capacity, and potentially in military power as well (the Haduir have the physically larger fleet, though it would take me only 3-4 turns to match and surpass them with mercs and my own production).
I'm lacking in weapons tech (though I don't really need it), and leading in infrastructure and social tech.
The question is now "how do I want to win this?". Do I lazily wait the next council vote and probably win it, or should I "forcibly annex" the Yoral and then either the Humans or the Orthin? (Depending on who's going to accept my alliance first. The Humans don't particularly like me, however the Orthin require an outrageous amount of Influence to ally, I suppose this is due to them being isolationists.)

Now a few observations from this game:
- Phidi are all about money and influence. Tendao has to be all-markets, as Opil not only provides even more money, but the much needed extra influence necessary for all the diplomacy and mercenary hiring. Once the economy is going, rushing colony ships is trivial.
- witnessed a couple of the Marauder factions actually do some slave raiding, very nice to seem them in action (also they captured populations necessary to me, I guess they knew they'd have a customer).
- AI choices regarding exploration and in general travel are... problematic, expecially with the circle shape galaxy. Not only do they send ships 15-20 turns away on the other side of the circle (once they get "range" there due to open ports agreements), the ships they send are all they've got, not just scouts. Heavy Cruisers and Fleet Carriers? Go explore that unknown star! It's not like they might need their fleet at home for defense...
- the Ashdar Haduir have no idea how to use their relic gate at Gienah/Ashdar Prime, it's especially painful to watch them sending ships on 15-20turn trips (one way) when on my previous game with them I could reach anywhere in the galaxy in 2-3 turns at the most (1-2 turns to Gienah from the factory planets, then 1-turn insta-jumps to wherever I had range). Same with population transport, all transports went to Gienah and from there to wherever needed instantly.
Could an Ashdar-specific pathing logic be implemented in some future update? Something along the lines of "compare travel times from A to B with travel times from A to Gienah. If A-B is less than or equal to A-Gienah +1 , then travel A-B. Otherwise, travel A-Gienah and then Gienah-B.
- all the AIs seem to put a lot of effort early on military technologies, way beyond the basic needs to clear systems from pirates and harpies. Somewhat more effort into early infrastructure and colonization would allow the AIs to be much more competitive later on.
- corollary to this, the AIs do make questionable building choices on planets as well. A factory and a space station on a small 5-pop 4-building backwater planet? Seems like wasted labor and metal to me.
- it would be nice to have the diplomatic option to ask an ally to make peace with someone else (especially if it's another ally...).

[zolobolo]

Yes the AI is quite liberal with travel time

Just had a game where the enemy I was attackign sent its last and quite strong fleet to a faraway semgent of the Galaxy against my ally (with 6 turns travel time) while my invasion fleet was straring at their last colony just 1 turn away

[gaerzi]

Could an Ashdar-specific pathing logic be implemented in some future update? Something along the lines of "compare travel times from A to B with travel times from A to Gienah. If A-B is less than or equal to A-Gienah +1 , then travel A-B. Otherwise, travel A-Gienah and then Gienah-B.

The AI doesn't really do multi-step logic like this. It just assigns orders as it see fits each turn. The game would need to have a way to queue orders, then the AI could use it. It'd allow to have pathing that makes use of star gates, as well as other fast-travel mechanics that might be added at some point (e.g. wormholes).

[Sevain]

The AI doesn't really do multi-step logic like this. It just assigns orders as it see fits each turn. The game would need to have a way to queue orders, then the AI could use it. It'd allow to have pathing that makes use of star gates, as well as other fast-travel mechanics that might be added at some point (e.g. wormholes).

You don't necessarily need multi-step planning in this case. If the AI evaluates it should go to system A, and the travel time there would be faster through the home world warp gate than direct transport, it should program in a move to the home world. Next turn it again evaluates where it should go and if that target system is still desirable sets it destination.

[zolobolo]

Currently there seems to be a bug that prevents Stargate to reduce travel time for AI (works for hte player though)

Meaning, that even if the movement control script would take Stargates into cosndieration it would ignore them right now
But also didnt see yet any AI build gates