Playing on Tough difficulty as the Torians on a small map with three other random AIs. I made sure to reroll the map so that each player had access to roughly equal number of systems. Rushed out, grabbed six class 8+ planets near my territory, went on to build up basic industry and research before beelining for extreme colonization since there were a bunch of extreme planets nearby including a class 21, lest the Altarians grab them all.
Looked relatively quiet what with only Altarians (who still hasn't learned to build fleets before troop transports), Iconians and Terrans in the neighborhood. Terrans were the first ones out with military ships, so I followed suit. Researched what I needed for some basic small beam defenders and placed them in orbit around all my planets. Already I was well ahead of everyone else in military score. With the Torian abilities I quickly grew a massive tax base as I beelined two morale, one research and one military resources located in my territory. I could finance my whole military, full espionage while keeping my overall happiness in the 70s-80s and making 100 bc per turn.
Eventually the Terran started pushing more ships so I responded with finishing the laser techs as well as getting max durantium armor and upgrading all my defenders for 16000 bc (nothing I couldn't handle with my tax base), doubling my military score in one go. I also started working on medium sized ships and produced two of them before the Terrans declared war on the Iconians and the Altarians. Naturally, I was invited to join and so now it was Terran vs everyone else. Or more precisely, Terran vs me, since I was the only one with any significant military. Beforehand I had already mass produced troop transport, amassing to roughly 27 billion troops, and researched all invasion techs except for planetary defense techs.
Immediately I sent my one and only fleet of two medium sized ships against the nearest Terran fleet. We barely took a scratch. Their fleets couldn't even handle two 3 beam, 9 armor defenders on any of my planets. Knowing this war was a foregone conclusion, I focused instead on Gladstone, their class 27(!) planet which had their orbital command center. Wiped the few ships defending them and took it with three transports. My spies steal their industrial sector tech (I was still on xeno factories) and after pushing out my third medium sized ship, I captured Earth. The Terrans were no more. At this point, I had no real opposition left and called it a day.
Next up, Painful difficulty.