Mid game trouble

Getting it right...

Hi guys,

I've tried this game for the first time ever since dark avatar came out, tried it once again later and now I am trying it again. And I am always running into the same trouble that made me ragequit the last two times. GalCiv2 is a great 4X game and I look forward to its successor but I just can't seem to get it right.

I am having trouble in the mid game. While I always come out on top during land grab stages but later on I start falling behind in everything but population.

I have a custom empire that is set up like this:

GAME: Twilight of the Arnor

RACIAL ABILITIES: Defense +20, Speed+20, Morale+20, Sensors +2, Logistics +6

SPECIAL: Super Isolationist

POLITICAL: Populist

TECH TREE: Altarian

I run my Colonization scheme like this:

I rush tech to temple and the second planet I settle is research only and I build nothing else but research and 2 morale buildings much later. The rest I colonize so that I build 1 factory, 1 starport, farms numbering based on planet class and just enough temples to maintain balanced and very high morale across my empire which I use later on to rake up the taxes, the rest goes into markets.

But its not enough. While my economy is sustainable, the AI is better across the board, same goes to research, influence, industry... but the military in first glance no, but then I always get raped because the bastard shows up with big ships, while end up behind with large numbers of bombers with 1 laser/1 missile damage.

What should I do?

Should I specialize more, generalize less? More factories? Less markets? more farms? How do I get it right?

And by the way, does anybody else feel that the thalan empire is a bit OP?

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Two key things to remember and do well;

1) servey ships

I usually always greatly benefit by going after Anomaly money as soon as possible - that can be a huge boost early game. The way to do it, i research to Ion drive first up then Xeno research to sensors level 1, as soon as i get sensors level 1 and Ion drive i can build 2 or 3 half decent servey ships with cargo hulls. Usually you will not need more than 3, (plus your flagship which is useless anyway because it chases anomalies behind AI flagships) and remember, they earn money, so don't be shy to rush buy them (never use repayment plan rushbuys). When rush buying and you only have several or less planets, you can put the production bar to 1% on the category of item your rush buying, because otherwise it is wasted production.

On some rare occasions i have gone broke because the servey ships keep on keep on keep on finding other junk and never money! I can always survive that but only because i am an experienced player, if your finances go negative spiral and your a newb, probably time to restart.

2) Trade techs

It is pretty tough to keep up without trading techs, learn it well and put plenty of minor races in your games, their your first port of call here.

The AI is very unreasonable trading techs, but don't let that put you off and try to research yourself those techs which the AI is exceptionally unreasonable with, such as logistics, hulls, extreme colonization techs. And when it comes to extreme colonisation, only research aquatic and heavy gravity, try to trade for the others, because you can end up left behind technologically and run out of tech trading options if you spend all that time researching say radioactive worlds and then discover the tech is worthless on the market (a known bug).

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Okay, noted. Is there a video of a playthrough or a tutorial of some kind on which I could get my bearings? Because after following you advice I actually managed to at least delay my inevitable doom.

The problem is this time that all the other races can never hold their own against the thalan empire and the terran empire and thus I fall behind yet again.

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