Treaties are truly important. They should be made as soon as possible. While your treaties are in place you got to do three things: expand, research, fortify in that order. Treaties reeeeeeeeeally help!

10 players as 10 teams - sorry forgot to post this with the above

well if that was your first time playing i recommend a small map cause even if your good a rts you still need to get the feeling of the game make sure not to overtax yourself make one planet at a time and be sure to make treaties with an AI near you and one fare away be sure they arent on unfair the TEC are like to me not that good *try Vasari* and build a big fleet and lots of defenses early on so youll be the big dog and dont let them all make treaties with everyone else and eat you also make sure you put bounty on an alliance your having trouble fighting the constant pirate raids can take a toll on them like attack during a raid that could help

Completing the missions they offer you. Solving two missions from any one player gives you 50% favour; solving three gives you 75%. Offers for cease fire will start coming in after you reach a certain amount of favour. (Not completing a mission loses some favour, but you never drop below zero, so just ignore missions from enemies that you're about to conquer unless they're combat-related and you want the resource bonus they provide)

Donating resources that weren't specifically asked for doesn't really do a lot for favour from what I've seen, although I could be wrong.

Note: trying to learn to play Sins on a giant FFA map is a little like learning to read by starting with War and Peace.

-- Retro

Hey yoadjla I agree what you said earlier about TEC , I find the other 2 factions much more effective on the big maps FFA