The tutorial isnt great but there are a number of good threads out there, step by step for beginner things. Those threads have been my guidance.
I didnt mention it, but the main reason the Slusken like us is that we’re bribing them . They’re the only Empire we trade our extremely rare commodities too. When it became clear the second largest Empire was going to be a problem, Dhayut decided to play nice with the third largest.
Sensible Policies for a Better Tomorrow
By luck it seems like my stopping point in the game is at, or just before, a change in the game. The galaxy is about to switch from empires colonizing planets and snatching independents over to one where empires are facing off with each other. So it’s probably a good time to look at the Kingdom and make some plans.
The economy – everything is ticking along ok. The Dhayut increased tax on the large colonies to make up for the revenue drop from abolishing slavery, and it turned out there was no real revenue drop. All the colonies with slavery bonuses were small and paying little or no tax anyway, so the State wasn't getting any of the bonus. The remaining problem is corruption, the Empire is spread out and corruption is rife far from Home. We have technology to build regional capitals that willl help with tax and corruption, so we’ll make Prodigal Sons capital of the Northern region, Ryleuth capital of Southern, and Gamma capital of Western and that should bring law and order to the outskirts. Wont be cheap to set up though.
Diplomacy – No one likes us, but nobody likes each other either. There appear to be no alliances anywhere.
The map shows only the colonies the Dhayut Kingdom know off, so it’s a little sparse. Dhayut Kingdom is the yellow patch in the middle, the Boskara Hive are the difficult to see purple group all the way down the east side of the Dhayut. They have 47 colonies to the Dhayut Kingdom’s 41, but only about 30% of the total population. They’re pretty much cockroaches in space so they’ll quickly breed to fill their new colonies. The Dhayut Kingdom should probably declare war on them now before they grow, but that’s risky with so many potential enemies.
The diplomacy screen shows lists of bullet points and scores affecting each empires relationship with the Dhayut Kingdom, things like “Instinctively like fellow insects (+7)” or the much more common “have had negative dealings with you in the past (-23)”. There are normally about 5 bullets, some good most bad, and the diplomatic stance is determined by the total score. Of the 19 Empire we know of, 16 are in the roughly -20 to -50 "angry with you" range, the other three being the Slusken Conformity (+12, our bribed BFF), the Virgissu Nation (-92, the Dhayut blew up their mining bases, the nasty brown smear to the west on the map) and the Quameno (-122, the Dhayut massacred one of their colonies, probably in the unmapped south of the map somewhere.) The Ackdarian Iskabar empire is the big blue circle to the west.
On the diplomatic side, there’s not much the Dhayut can do. Surprisingly xenophobic spiders from hell dont really go in for diplomacy much, Dhayut don't produce many diplomats. We have one, but nowhere to send him as we don't know where the Quameno are, or where the Boskara capital is. So the first task for diplomacy is a new batch of long range explorations ships and set out finding where our potential enemies are. And the Dhayut will try and bully some small empires into pacts too, Finlandization worked for the Soviets.
The Military – It’s time to get defensive. Currently the set up is a small System Defense Fleet in each Dhayut system under AI control to defend the system, and larger fleets in reserve. It’s time to add a new level under AI control. 4 or 5 Rapid Response Fleets that will be set to protect the sector, so if an enemy attacks a system, the SDF will hold til the RRF zooms in like the cavalry. I haven't mentioned it before but the Dhayut have an advantage over other races: faster hyperdrives. We’re zooming at 30k speeds, the rest top out at 13k, so we’ll take advantage of that warp speed by having fast reinforcements in reserve. We’ll also be boosting the Star Ports at the main colonies, turn them into well armed defense points. And on the colonies we’ll raise troops to garrison, right now most of the colonies are undefended on the ground. That should keep us safe, although cost a fortune.
The Government – Dhayut will be staying a kingdom. We could kick off a revolution and change to Military Dictatorship to make the coming increases to the military cheaper, but that would risk rebellions and civil war, so King Sawa will be sticking around. When he turned up he was courageous and expansionist, over the years he’s added the trait Corrupt. His family are siphoning off 10% of all trade and tourism income. So hopefully he’ll get overthrown soon.