When you start out playing you can't really go wrong. Just take care to restart the game if you have really bad luck with the RNG (for example extinction event directly in the beginning)

Do not go for the unbalanced species. Go for the standard or, if possible, balanced species. Those species are worth much more than the points they cost because unbalanced species heavily struggle with a lack of resources, which will most often lead to their demise.


Here are some of the species I like to play, other than humans (which are my favourite species):





One thing I can heavily recommend is to favour some species over others when playing. Don't try to treat everyone equally because if you do that you will inevitably come to lack synthesis points which will very likely to some of your species dying.
Pick one or two which you will spend more points on and one or two which you will use to farm more points.
You can have only one species that reaches (near) Singularity-Stage and have it populate other planets, in the worst case.

The mid game starts for me when 3 or more species have spawned.

Most often the Sol-Species is the third one to spawn, and with that, humans, my main species.

Well anyway, this is where things can start to go south. There could be extinction events, wars that break out or simply other, resource-draining events that will cause you to lose in the mid- or longterm.

You will always have to have at least 60 synthesis points in this game phase. 60 = 0 so to say.
If you have 70 points and spend 30 for some benefical event and get an extinction event 4 turns later, which costs you 60 points to avoid then you simply lost a civilization for no reason right there.

That's why, treat 60 points like 0 points. you are very much in danger, whenever you have less than 60 points.

If you absolutely have to go below 60 points for some reason or another DON'T EVER open events. No matter what. Just farm synthesis points again until you have enough to avoid exctinction events or exctinction wars.

Now on to the most important factor of the game: RESOURCES. If you have resources you win the game if you don't have resources you will probably lose the game.
Always opt for choosing resources when you have the choice. Lethality and Morals are basically useless in the game (we will talk about it later).
Don't worry about Lethality as you will always make sure to have enough Synthesis-Points to avoid any war from happening. Heck, I had populated planets with a few million people and lethality with over 100 million casualities. It doesn't matter at all. If you have enough points for the peace option, lethality is toothless tiger. Don't waste your points to avoid increase in lethality and don't miss any chances for points in exchange for increase in lethality.
Choosing scientifc research is equal to actively harming yourself because you will shorten the time you have to gather synthesis points, which will be needed to spend for advancing to the next evolution stage.
Back to the resources: Always choose Advancement. Don't choose Wisdom, don't choose Power, always choose Advancement. This will save you so much trouble. If Advancement is too expensive, relative to your points, then go for Wisdom, but if it doesn't cost more than 30 - go for Advancement.
Also make sure to not have too much population-growth. 4% is the sweet spot. Don't try to go above 6% which is also still manageable. You will have to use the minus-2%-choice to bring your growth down again whener choosing Advancement in order to save up resources for later on.

Don't build space ships early on. Basically useless. I never build them before the cybernectic age because most often those colonies cost a lot of points and lack behind in research because they travel long and there's no growth in any stats while they are travelling. Wait for the end game with travelling and save up your snythesis points.

About the radar signals: It's quite fun to do it once but it's not a good tradeoff. They cost a lot of points and don't do much.

You will have to have a few Singularity-age civilizations to end the game. That's why here again, saving up points is so important. The last choice will cost you 50 points if you want the good ending and you will always have to fear one or more extinction events which will usually cost 60 points to avoid. This is why I try to have at least 110 points in the end game at all times.

Before I said that the morals option is basically useless. Well it is indeed. However it influences the ending and if you want to best ending, having higher morals among your civilizations increases the likelyhood of the good ending.

The screenshots of the session is a game where I had 0 wars 0 extinctions and 0 lost planets.