Well I think, with more than a bit of help from my forum homies, have blown off the rust. Using the previous settings, I started in the middle of a huge map...and was comfortable the entire time:
Turn 91: I had highest score at 218. I was 1st in population with 212. AI population was 83/85/112/161. I was 1st in planets owned with 27. AI had 10/12/19/24.
I built 57 ships. AI had 16/63/69/72 and was highest on military power graph most of the time.
So I think that wraps it up for this thread. Thanks for all the suggestions! Like the guy in the movie The Color of Money, "I'm *back*!".
The keys for me were:
a. focusing on dedicated shipyard/industry planets with planet econ slider set to max industry. Once the shipyard has been built on such a planet...colonizers and small ships should be spat out every 2-4 turns each, max.
b. keep colonizers at .7 population
c. empire econ slider set to make zero or 1 credit...otherwise 50% industry/50 research
d. start aggressive build of small hulls with decent weapons and no engines and stack them in their home shipyards once the first age of war weapon is researched along with shield and point defense (i cannot figure out how to stuff armor into a small hull as well)
Disadvantages:
a. minimal constructors/starbases...playing catchup with the AI there. Only grabbing relics and ascension crystals for the most part, and 2+ weapon ore locations whenever possible.
b. According to the "retire" screen, AI is crushing me at:
- earnings: I earned 3K, while the AI produced 6/8/11k. Yet the economic timeline shows that I'm solidly the leader. Strange.
- research: the timeline shows me at dead last, and not even an eighth of the Altarian total...well, the Altarians blow the top off the research graph in most of my games thus far. Yet the "most researched" tech I seem to be have better or the best. I guess I should chalk that up to the tech trading: AI probably has lots of low score techs gained via trading.
- approval: all of that population growth and lack of entertainment makes for unhappy people. AI has much happier folks.