Strategies
From Sins of a Solar Empire
TEC Tactics
For the TEC I usually start with an Arcova Scout Frigate, whilst building my resource gatherers and a pair of Civic Research Stations and a Capital Ship Factory. Once I've done this, I always build a Kol Battleship (although an Akkan would work too with another colonising fleet) and a Colony Ship. As soon as you have the resources you should immediately invest in Interstellar Trade research, as building a Trade Station at every planet you colonise is a good investment and will help you earn extra credits early on, which are imperative for quick expansion.
By now you should have at least got two or three planets (or four if you bought the Akkan). If you put a Trade Station at every planet then you should be raking in a fair few credits now. Spend these on upgrading your planets population structure (on the planetary improvements tab) so that you aren't getting undevelopment rates on your taxes. Spend any other credits on buying Military Research (leave upgrades and try and go for better ships to expand your fleet capabilities) and more ships. Also, buy the Hangar Defence as well, it really DOES work against, well anyone because even when its squadrons are destroyed it just pumps out more, making your enemy concentrate on eliminating them whilst you can bring in reinforcements.
At this stage you should have got another two planets under your belt, and on small games I usually stop here and start building my defences on all my outer planets. A good design of defences shouldn't have any gaps between the gauss cannon fire range and at the very least two Hangar Defense. A good rule of thumb is that you can never have too many gauss cannons...
Okay, this is a bit of a no-brainer here, but always endeavour to win a pirate bid. Pour all your money, sell your surplus crystal and metal, but WIN! Hopefully, after a few winning bids, the pirates should be launching severe attacks on the opposition. Don't be afraid to conquer the planets around the pirates path of advance, if they pass through they'll just ignore you. Don't think its the end of the world if you lose a bid however. If you followed my advice then when any pirates attack your outer worlds should be defeated with little micromanagement from yourself. I once completely destroyed a severe pirate raid with only six gauss cannons, two hangar defense, and a level one and a level two capital ship (an akkan and a sova respectively), with only two cannons and the akkan being destroyed. So don't give up if a bid doesn't go your way.
Despite what the previous author of this text wrote it is in fact not always a good option to "pour" all your money into winning a pirate bid, you must analyse the importance of it every time. For example, early in the game a pirate bid win and therefore an assualt on your enemies can be very decisive in giving you the upper hand although late in the game lets say when each player is booming with a large fleet and 6-10+ cap ships the pirates are mearly free experience for those cap ships, and with increased experience comes more abilities and strength the enemy can leverage on you. Not really a good trade off considering your now in a huge defecit of resources spent on pirate raiders.
Carry on concentrating on military research until you unlock the novalith cannon. Build one IMMEDIATELY! Don't wait, just get the resources and build it on your most heavily defended world on the side of the gravity well facing friendly territory, so that any attackers have to navigate around the planet to attack it, which buys you a bit of time. Blitz the nearest enemy planet and attack with your Kol (if you didn't get it at the start then any self-respecting TEC player would have bought one by this point) and a fleet of other capital ships (like a marza) escorted by about ten or twelve heavy cruisers. This should be enough to crush any resistance. Carry on doing this for all the enemy planets, remembering to consolidate your new territory with gauss cannons and tactical structures, and a small fleet if you can. Carry on like this and (provided something doesn't go majorly wrong) you should have the opponent defeated.
Some final notes: Try to keep a ceasefire with everyone except who you're attacking. They don't have to help you, but so long as you don't have to worry too much about an imminent attack, that's fine.
I hope that this tactic works for all of you Sins players as well as it has for me! Also, others add any other TEC Tactics onto this summary. ]
