I was just wondering what some other people do for early game strategy. I like to bolster my population and colony count personally. I usually reload until I can have at least 3 colones attached to my first star-base, after settling then I tech to xeno biology grabbing xeno growth along the way. I go good when settling colonies for the happiness modifiers. By now I put all my sliders to manufacturing on planet and manually make my original star-base colonies produce colony ships, after they have build their hospital. All new planets I make tech planets or manufacturing planets, if they have 4+ decent worlds I can attach to a star-base. Depending on approval ratings I work slow or quickly to supportive populations, then wealthy populations and ultimately tourism. Tourism seems to be enough to keep my planets going, with no need to allocate points to income, untill the end of game.
As soon as I meet a new race I buy their survey ship for 2-300 bc,which pays for itself 1,000 times over with all the goodies they find.
I've tried making star-bases for resources but it is just so tedious making constructors and sending the right amount here and there then you get new tech and send another round of constructors. I never used star-bases for this reason in gv2 either.