Yea, it sucks I got to hand it to ya, but that isn't all that bad. In fact It's a good thing! It means that the AI plays much better then before in GCI. In GCI I could set the AI to intelligent and even without cheating I could still win by colonizing all the good planets I found, and getting a military strong enough. In GCII It plays more agressively toward me then before. I always play as evil, so I know that's a factor, but even in GCI when I played evil the AI was all bluff and no play. In this game when it goes to war with you, it goes to war with you, and If your new you might find yourself surrendering to that civilization, as production is much slower in this game then in GCI. So no mass building ships here. I've tried just purchasing the ships, and eventually i ran out of money. Then Earth was conquered by the dreaded Drath Empire, then Mars, and finally if that wasn't bad enough I got an event that cause a universial war against me, and I was defenseless, and ganged up on so I decided to surrender to the Drath, since they had my empire pretty much under their control anyway. Any new tips or stratagies I could try. I know be more neutral instead of evil, but besides that. Any help is apperciated.