[Dragonlord]

Gorgo,

I am flattered that you would think I am such an experienced player that I always make it to the first ranking. I am actually in second place in 2 games where statistics are turned on, and am first in the Spiralus and Dark Wars game.

My strategy? Well, it's a combination of many factors, luck being one of them.
Starting position is *very* important, in fact in the next game I host I will pre-generate the map and fix the starting position of all players so that everybody has an equal shot at success.

I also tend to research Appled Research II and Minerals II early on, to save me the time of upgrading facilities later. I try to make T&R alliances with everyone, and have a good economy going. I spend racial points on things like political ability (more trade) and ship maintenance. I usually have many ships, which count (too) heavily in score.
In the beginning of a game I set all my starting planets on emergency build to make colonisers in one turn, and build a few space stations. By the time my planets go in slow mode my new colonies have spaceyards and can take up the slack, while my space stations make Mines, which is my primary defense in the early game. I've stopped wasting time on satelites, and often skip Fighters too. I pay a lot of attention to all the numbers and micromanage a lot, e.g. get 100 population minimun on all planets for that small bonus in construction capacity.

At the end of the day, these games are all about juggling the numbers to your advantage, something I like to do.
The second best part is the diplomatic roleplaying you get in multiplayer PBW games.

Hope that helps,

Dragonlord