Here's an alternative strategy for a good start for newbs or players kicking back for a round. It's a long term strategy.

Make sure you start on the earliest tick possible. If you ask on the forums, it may be possible for you to join a world just before a boost, which is very handy...

Look around the map for one of the top alliances... maybe ask on the forums first who they might be. Plant your colony nearby (not in the midle of them).
DON'T trade any protection.

Build your Food research then metal research, alternating between the two, until you reach level 3 in both. Then add oil, so to illustrate:
Food, Metal, food, metal, oil, food, metal, oil, food, metal, oil.
Get your food & metal to level 5, oil to 3. This will take a while, but staying in protection means you get the time to do it.

In the meantime, establish a good relationship with one of the best players you can find nearby. Explain to them that you want to be conquered so you can build up slowly, and could you arrange for them to do it as soon as you come out of protection. This offer is unlikely to be turned down!
When you are nearing the end of protection, arrange a tick with your friend for them to conquer you, and trade in your last few ticks of protection to time it right.

You get conquered! Time to continue to relax...

Okay, options time. Your pop will be getting near 500 - you will need a settlement. You want to avoid training troops - ask your conquerer or their alliance leader if you can build a settlement near your colony so that you can grow, and for them to leave it in peace. Or if it's early enough you might be able to find a remote island to build a settlement on away from danger. You will need another settlement before your pop gets to 700.

You need to work on the other researches, spreading your research across the board. Energy is a low priority. Comms & spy is a high priority. Range units are also a priority.

Over time the odd boost or admin bonus will kick in. Use it to research. You will notice that you are ranked in the top 1000...
When you have L5 Resource structures & around L4 everything else, build an Ion Cannon. Then start saving...

Now you can build some troops. There is lots of opinion about this, but for your protection & as a start, go for 3 squads of armour/damage/range vehicles, 1 each of conc/beam/missile. They don't have to be full squads immediately. Go for 5, then 10, then 15 later.

As you are building your squads, you will be close to 20 power. Let your conquerer know you will be getting a crystal & arrange for him to take it if possible. You don't want it - it will just cause grief. You can always get some later... Park your squads on your nearby settlement. This will make your conquerer very happy & helpful I'm sure.

You will notice you are ranked around the top 500. What? But I haven't done anything! No, but you haven't wasted any resources on squads you don't need or defending.

Now go back to being lazy, and slowly complete your researches. As your pop is high, you will be earning decent resources, and the odd boost will kick in. Finish all your structures to level 5. Congrats!

Options time. You can build up your army now, make some infantry killing tanks, some vehicle killing infantry, and some tank killing vehicles - or look on the forum for other peoples ideas on army mixes. You can join a decent alliance, or wait and join a better one. You will have a good picture of who is good, and your conquerer can help advise now. Hopefully they will be top 20 & you should listen to their advice on who to join.

Beware, because joining an alliance will deplete your resources & squads, but if you can't wait for action go down that route.

The disciplined lazy player will wait another 1000 ticks building up their army.... biding their time...

You conquerer will most likely help plan your liberation time. Now it's down to you, released into the world in the top 250 without lifting a finger... good luck.

Nokando

This is the weirdest strategy i have ever read in my life. If your new i will not follow this strategy. Wow who would even suggest this and why would i want to be ranked anything other than below 50.

I believe you completely missed the point of this guide .

To tell you the truth I think this strategy is brilliant of course it sort of screws you over when you do it but at least you won't be wondering if you got conquered or not every second you can build with peace then mass launch against your enemies.

This guide is brilliant, I just might join the next new world...

I know whats the point of this guide is but that just my opinion.

I think the idea is that you basically just "start playing" late in the game.

This guide is good if you just want to make a colony in another world for fun while you are focusing on you main world(s) you play on which you are succesful at.

Nice Job

Brilliant! One of the best guides I have ever read period. The outlook is entirely nonchalent and continually moves forward surely albeit slowly. Ingenious, devious, and while not as fast paced it is certainly still fun.

I was wondering how it would be possible to actually play on multiple worlds and still commit anything close to what one is really capable of if one played only one world.

I know I started really really late in E1 and had a lot of problems, and still have those problems. I knew I would have to make up for a lot of lost time, and even when my unit number seemed high to me, it would always be overwhelmed by a nearby guy who started early and had like 10x my number. The minute my alliance entered a war, I couldn't even work on making up lost time with my constructions. This guide lazily sidesteps all those issuse by planning being conquered and loosing your crystal into the master plan, thereby avoiding any of the negatives until you will not be nearly as baddly hurt when you inevitably take losses. Sure, the biggest danger I can see is actually never getting to play, but the whole fact that this style of play is so lazy means you can play a world in this fashion while simultainesouly enjoying a more active role on another server.

Brilliant! Way to go Nokando! (sorry, got your name wrong I guess. Fixed though)

Thanks for the positive feedback.

And yes, I came up with the strategy as a way to participate in worlds other than my active ones. You can still participate in those worlds if they get interesting about half way through. And it seems to be a stress free way for newbs to get a feel for the game and still improve rank enough to get into a decent alliance.

The tester game progress so far:

Tick: 400
Structures built: 5,5,5,4,3,4,5,5,5
Pop: 754
Tokens spent: 0
Units: 60 (mostly ranged vechs)
Login time: 15 minutes/day max
Rank: 375/3400

And btw willow, rueldinho was the guy who hates the guide, it was me who wrote it!!!