Here's a little entry which I'd like to dedicate to the game that is ruining my life. Yes, Alpha Centuari, you and you alone can entice me to stay up until 3am. Just one more war to be won, one more enemy to crush to dust beneath the heel of Prefect Zoidberg.

So without further ado, here are some of my tips for Alpha Centuari.

Must have wonders

• The Weather Paradigm - Vital. It's one of the first wonders you can build, and it cuts terraforming rates in half. It's like doubling the number of formers you have. If you don't get it, it's going to be a hard slog.
  
• The Hunter-Seeker - If you don't get it, and you end up in a war with a momentum type player, you're going to get probed to death. And not in a good way. Get used seeing lots of "A Believing probe team destroyed the perimeter defense at Zoidberg's Folly" without this wonder.
  
• The Cloudbase Academy - Makes your air units much, much tougher in combat. If you've got enemies all around you, you'll need this almost as much for yourself as to deny it to them.
  
• The Cloning Vats - Without this, you could well lose the game. Each base will grow one population per turn up to it's maximum capacity.
  
• Space Elevator - Allows you to do orbital insertions of drop squads. 'Nuff said.
  

Tips and Stuff:

• Armor your formers! Sure they'll cost more, but they're tougher to destroy and can survive mind worm attacks. If you're desperate, you can use them to blunt the force of an enemy attack. And when you've got a huge tech disparity between you and your opponents, you can enjoy watching them use 2 or 3 missle needle jets to take out one silksteel former. Very economical.
  
• Experiment. AAA Rovers are very useful, but don't appear as soon as they can be made in your unit selection (if they appear at all). Make them yourself. The AAA Shard Dragon should be a mainstay of any midgame invasion force, and will be your "heavy" unit until hovertanks appear.
  
• Armor Everything! When you first develop the copter airframe, the default units have no armor. Armor them, stick the best weapon you can on them (usually shard weaponry at that point) and use them to back up your invasion forces. Don't use them to attack bases, but do use them to pick off any counterattacking forces which may be gathering just out of your main forces range.
  
• Experiment Part 2. There are no airplane troop carriers in the game. But you can make them. It's much easier to ferry backup support to a base via air than have it slog down a road. Especially if that road is vulnerable to counterattack and you haven't consolidated the region yet. Similarly you can make a carrier (troop transport with the added ability to support air units) on both cruiser and speeder bodies. Why speeder? It gives you a mobile helicopter base for your invasion forces.
  
• Use truces to buy time. If you've just been attacked by a faction, and you managed to grab one of their bases, immediately offer a truce. Chances are they'll take it, and you can use the time to bring up reinforcements. If you're feeling lucky, you can even demand they withdraw their troops from the area, but don't be suprised if that fails.
  
• Beat them when they're down. If you've been attacked, and you've broken the back of the enemy resistance, don't stop, but continue until they're down to a few bases. Then, if they offer a truce (and if they've only got a base or two left they certainly will) make sure they know you'll destroy them. You can usually get them to sign a pact to serve you, and this is terribly useful. You can then turn some of their less productive bases back over to their control and give them all your techs. You'll then be in nominal control of a powerful proxy state that won't attack you, and will attack your enemies.
  
• Drop Probe Teams. Once you've got the space elevator, slap some drop pods on your probe teams and go to town. If anyone dares to declare vendetta on you, drop some probe teams near their capital and drain all their energy reserves, activate sabotage viruses, etc. Drop AAA tanks can also be quite fun.
  
• Clean everything. Once you've got the tech for Clean reactors, use it everywhere. Clean AAA Behemoths are your friend, and they free up resources in your bases.
  

Best score I've gotten so far was 412%.

Enjoy.