I like to get into a slightly secluded area and get some of the planets but i don't worry about it to much. Then I get on amazingly good terms with the race between me and everyone else, and also act friendly to everyone. Then I basically become the mold you forget about in your basement and it just grows and grows and grows and grows until it takes over the basement. And then I say "No, I wasn't your buddy I'm just an...never mind your all dead now". and i own all the galaxy YAY

This happened on my second game ever and the Torians were the 'buffer empire', and if anyone went to war with me they couldn't even get me. but the torians did eventually die out but my military was so huge what took the drengins about 3 years to conquer, I took in about 5 months! then I took over the entire galaxy, but first the yor, thalans, and a few altarian was left to fight me, and ALL the military went to the yor but they didn't use it probablly because they saw my military strength and exclaimed IT'S OVER 9000!!!!!!!! and got scared but i won that game

WOOHOO!!!! n00b back then got more than 2,000,000 score!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Err...The Korath are so agrivating. I will admit that the AIs do under utilize them, but it makes the game interesting trying to stop them when they can move 12 pc/week. I don't consider it cheap, just annoying.

Reading all of these strategies made me think,
What if I try to dominate the military standings from the beginning>?
Actually, it worked pretty well. Not only did I have the highest military score for most of the game, I also was doing 44% of the reasearch in a nine person game. But everyone was at war with me, so it balanced out.

I read on the forums about a neat "let's you and him fight" tactic: two other civs are at war, and you want a resource owned by one of them. Send a warship and a constructor next to the resource and sell the warship to the opposite side. That civ wipes out the resource base, and then you pounce on it with your constructor. You might even be able to buy back the warship after that civ has done your dirty work for you with it. One presumes you could do this to both sides of the war if the opportunity presents itself. There might be diplomatic consequences to this tactic, but it's probably not as drastic as actually attacking the resource and taking the blame for it yourself.

Even without spore ships, I've found the Korath to be quite strong. I have played with super-abilities only rarely, but still the Korath always have a very strong military from early on, and usually waste no time trying to conquer other civs.

Sentient species taste better...

I play the game with the same strategy that a lot of people here seem to. focus on build up then attack with a strong economy backing you and a tech level thats far in advance.
This is my strategy breakdown. I tend to play the Evil Terran Empire on the largest map. (ok...this a lot wordier than I intended and I may be rambling a bit at the end because it is getting late....sorry)

Colony Rush-I play this in the red. I typically build ships that have a little extra speed and life support and send them off towards dense star clusters to grab planets that others might get to first and then build the general ones to explore more close to home. I buy outright as long as I can. Anomaly farming is key.

Tech Building-I go for the governments, typically till Republic, to get that boost in the economy, and then switch to the Good Vs Evil branch. Once that is done I build the mind control center for that economy boost and switch back until I reach star democracy. Once that is done I alternate between military and the other techs to keep up with everyone. This initially places me behind in the tech game but once things are set up I blow past them.

Foreign Relations-Suck up, suck up, suck up and then kill. What? You want 500 or you'll attack? Sure! I also randomly give small gifts to the closest empires (50-100 cred or a low level tech that wont affect me like Missile Defense Theory if I have lasers) to keep the nose nice and brown. I have played games where everyone is on Friendly terms with me but fighting each other. For this reason and because I usually bribe them to fight I stay out of alliances until opportune moments. I use the minor races as quick sources of cash. If playing with 8 you can sell the same low level tech to each and come away with several thousand. I also use the minor races to keep my tech level from becoming too far behind the competition during the early stages by trading my techs with their techs.

Alliances-Only if necessary. Example. I was playing a game where the Drenegin and Yor were my main adversaries (the Arceans were contained due to regular fighting with the Drenegin and the other races had been conquered) both bordered my "home systems" and I knew I had to take one out before they turn on the arceans and absorb them. The Drenigan and Yor had better relations than I did with either group. So I bribe the Arceans to attack the Drenigan by supplying them with some of my ships that are a couple of generations old. Wait a turn and ally with the Drenegin (so I don't get dragged into that war) and attack the Yor. The Arceans are busy, the Drenigans are my "allies" and I am free to invade the Yor without outside interference.

Military-Once I am ready to invade I like to build 3 classes of attack ships. VERY fast but weak fighter with sensors. A medium ship that serves as the backbone. And then the ship that makes everyone cower in fear. The fighters are sent into enemy territory to scout and determine where the enemy is located,(high quality planets, fleets, star/mining bases etc). Meanwhile the other two classes along with transports build up close to the territory. When sufficient ships are nearby I send them towards the enemy fleets and most valuable planets. The fighters then spread out and attack vulnerable targets (freighters, colony ships, transports, mines, undefended star bases). They are fast and cheep enough that I have had 10 of these suckers cover an entire empire and destroy every undefended target. The larger ships then target the enemy fleets. That way I can make sure their main military strength is taken out in the first few turns by ganging up on their fleets and valuable planets. The transports are right after this first wave (usually 2-3 transports reserved for the planets that are initially targeted). Meanwhile the next wave is gathering and the process repeats. The fighters continue patrolling so I can know if the enemy is gathering any more fleets and I can send the necessary forces to destroy them and the fighters swoop in on any Troop transports that are produced. This also allows me to keep a minimal for defense.

Espionage-Only use to get enough basic information on an opponent. Then keep on hand for invasions. Place the Spy on a Farm on a colony you want to invade. That way you starve a planet down to a level where only 1 Transport is needed when you would have needed 2-3 and you wont need to use any tactics that destroy improvements or PQ.

I do that too.
Question though...I have never had a transport left over after an invasion...even if I only loose a handful of troops the transport is gone. Am I doing something wrong?

Actually, if you invade using more than one transport, you can keep the remainder if enough troops survive. For example, if you're using three 1000 million troops capacity transports and invade a world, you'll have 2 transports left if you're left with more than 2000 troops, 1 if you end up with 1000-2000 troops left, and non if your invasion force ends up below a thousand.

You will always lose at least one transport, though. Come to think of it, you could potentially minimize the number of transports that are eaten up in an invasion by designing a medium hull or smaller transport using a single 500 man troop module, and then put them into massive transport fleets. If they were armed (instead of loaded with engines) they could even hold their own against a weak opponent, since they'd have HP (unlike a cargo hull).

Zero Military, all the way. As the Korx or the Humans, I focus on economy, science, diplomacy, and building up infrastructure. With said priorities, the POTENTIAL to build high quality military rapidly is always there, but I'm not paying maintenance costs on fleets when I dont need them, and I am channelling most of my production into social/planetary projects. When I am not at war, constructors are about the only ships I build.

Diplomacy is key to this strategy (you have to spend customization points on diplo when playing the Korx). It is crazy, but even with only a few defenders, races of opposite alignment will (typically) just grin stupidly at you if your diplomacy is high enough. Then, you have technologies to give as cookies if things start detiorating. With diplomacy, you can nab other civs econ and research treaties and peddle yours away to those who would-be most hostile.

When and if war comes, you typically need a lot fewer ships because of your higher technology. Its not unusual to see one of my fleets go through 4-5 enemy fleets, simply because I focused on climbing the tech tree before building any ships.

A few side-notes:
-Starbases seem to weigh in as military power as far as the AI is concerned, so get those starbase fortification techs to give yourself a bit of muscle that the computer can recognize.
-When you don't have the fire-power, buy it with a few technologies. For example, need to take out a minor race's starbase because you want the resource? Park a constructor near the resource and get your closest neighbor to do it for you (especially if you have treaties from the minor race that you dont want to betray). Someone declare war on you and you are in an awkward state of developing infrastructure? Convince someone else to go to war and buy yourself a little time.
-NEUTRALITY is the alignment of diplomacy, NOT good, as many players seem to think. Buy it later in the game if you have to. Neutrality also gives you neutrality learning centers and more trade routes.
-Speaking of trade routes, use them to loosen up aggressive races aggro. They will start to like you when a percentage of their income comes from trade with you.

Where do you go from there? Well...this strategy is pretty versatile, allowing for alliance victory or technological victory fairly easily. An influence victory becomes very possible with all your research/tech and constructors running around. The conquest victory is probably most difficult, simply because you have to have patience, waiting until your technology and economic lead is large enough to start producing starships in earnest.

All of this said, I think that it is too easy to win this way. The computer SHOULD aggro harder on a zero military wierdo. Its not unusual for me to get through massochistic, obscene, or suicidal difficulty level games without fighting in a SINGLE war I didn't intentionally provoke myself. I hope future tweaks in the game will make this strategy more challenging (but not unplayable).