So I've been trying to give the tall playstyle a shot, but still not entirely sure on some parts of it. It seems like if you play tall, the focus should be on rapid tech and unity. So far I've been trying this with Fanatical Pacifist / Materialist, and using Agrarian Idyll to try and get quick unity. I figure I want to focus on trying to get to Synthetic Ascension as early as I can. Is this a good way to start playing tall, or do you think a different type of empire would work better?

The other part I'm not sure on is how much expansion should I be looking at for this? My last game I was at five planets, with two other planets in my borders that were 23 to be terraformed later. This would have still had me under my core system limit. I'm not entirely sure if that was too much expansion, or if I should be looking at more than that. I didn't get a chance to get too far in the game I first tried playing tall in since I was surrounded by Advanced AI empires, and unfortunately got dragged into a war with one due to a defensive pact, which ended the game for me.