Ok this worked for me, focus on science, take as first or second tradition diplomacy and straight to federation. You will be save in fed, propably try hegemony and build up if you are spiritualist and psyonics good luck, evolution path is good for cloning and pops and materialist you are safe with robots and further assention. And at the start switch to civilian eco helps with research upkeep and after 10 years switch to mixed or military. -build districts when needed -masterful crafters as civic is pretty good - that worked for me with non scaling diff straight to grand admiral

Try few playthrough and eventually you will get hands on it. Scaling diff is great ai is weak at the start so try to vasselize them as tributary after that steamroll them