I need to seriously work on my GC2 abilities. For some reason, no matter how many times I play this game I always find my self trailing in the civ rankings on any ai level higher than normal. I think my starting strategy has something to do with it. Here is how I normally do things at the sart of the game.

1 Send Colony Ship and Survey Ship off to nearest systems to find new worlds, leaving the class 4 in the starting system until later. Space minor goes on auto improve. Once I've got enough worlds on my plate, the survey ship orbits known space to reveal more of the map.

2 Bring social spending down to 30%, military to 25% and research up to 45% or so. Tax until i reach 65% approval and use as much industrial capacity as i can without getting a negative income.

3 Start homeworld producing more colony ships and colonise about 4 or so good worlds. i instantly buy one factory on each to get social production started.

4 Build constructors as soon as the survey ship spots any resources, otherwise pump out colony ships as long as there are habitable worlds in view, leaving one next to any good uninhabitables that i need techs for. If i get the feeling that I'm at risk of being beaten to the prize i dip into my starting funds again. I don't build any scout ships like the ai does, i don't see how they get time.

5 About half my worlds will be dedicated to churning out ships quickly, the rest will not have shipyards and be either be dedicated population centres (farm, morale buildings, income building) or research worlds depending on position or special tiles. V. high class worlds may be a combination of these or have many special projects and trade goods. I like to specialise my planets a lot.

So, anything you would recommend i change abot my starting strategy? Thanks.