How to avoid stalling out
As the title says, I've won the game once as Exodus on normal because all I had to really do once gathering resources was turtle in earth orbit.
here are the issues I'm having consistently
I can secure some good nations on earth early and save for quick mars rush
I focus on fusion tech
defending my earth nations (killing aliens, destroying assault carriers, destroying facilities) leads to alien hate and them wiping out all my orbital assets and building a fleet to defend them just leads to a hate spiral and total war I'm not prepared to win.
my dominant earth position often with multiple superpowers and exofighters/orbital defences cannot be breached by the aliens but any time I try to build anything in space it immediately gets destroyed leading to stalemated games where I can't push into orbit against the aliens but they can't get a foothold on earth against me.